


Remnants

by Jasenerd



Category: RWBY, Worm - Wildbow
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3654600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jasenerd/pseuds/Jasenerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Worlds end and begin anew, but sometimes trace of previous existences linger and leave their mark on their successors. The parahumans of Brockton Bay are just Remnants of a forgotten time. Yet victory is in a simple soul, as the echoes of past heroes will come to teach. "And thus, I scatter"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scatter 1-1

**Remnants**

_**Scatter 1-1** _

_**Ruby Returns** _

 

**Author's Note: Redone Chapter 1! So lets see if I can't fix this up a little bit :D**

**So real question here, I noticed that I, personally, use hand motions while I speak(“speaking with my hands” as it’s called)(apparently it’s a _french_ thing?) I tried to insert some of that in the chapter because I find it fits the whole show not tell methodology of story telling. Did it work out?**

**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-**

It was small. It stank of rot and decay. My head was pounding as blood poured over my eyes causing them to water up. The filth was getting in my cuts, it felt like my body was being burnt away. The cuts were going to be infected when, no if, I got out of the metal coffin. My throat was horse and dry from crying out for help since getting trapped here.

I could deal with the usual bullying. The name calling and the harassment was nothing new and ultimately things I could endure. The betrayal of my best friend was more painful, but Emma had been easing up so I let down her guard. How could I have been so naive? Sophia and her two minions had somehow filled my locker with used sanitary pads and other disgusting trash.

The winter break had already started for the rest of the students of Winslow High school, and the staff had already left for the holidays. The cold, biting air had already begun to invade my lungs as my breathing slowed down and my shoulders began to shake. To think I had the audacity to think that my holiday could start well.

I am going to die. I know that now. This was the end of my life and I was utterly powerless to do anything about it. My three tormentors have finally managed to beat me. All those people who had seen the event left me and forgotten that my life was in danger. Even the teachers and adults that we were supposed to trust must have known about this. Who could I trust now that their real faces were shown to me?

-0-0-0-0-0-

Space spanned out infinitely. Two beings that belied description existed. They moved away and back again. Thousands of flakes, each bigger than everything drifted away from the two.

**Intersection**

**Destination?**

**Agreement**

**Trajectory?**

**Agreement**

The last thought I had was of a fresh cut rose and a flash of red.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The light of early morning shook me from my rest. Around the room, I could make out several jars of water had crystalline structures of every colour, some even growing out of the jar into the air. I reached and picked up my glasses, the thick frames resting on my nose. The thin layer of snow outside the window was pretty.

Crap, it was almost morning and all of my jars were still out.

I was up in my room not a whole minute latter, a small storm of rose petals fluttering to the ground. I sighed as Iheld a cloth to the finger I cut to fuel the growth. Once the blood stopped seeping thought the rag, I got a broom and swept up the petals that I left behind. The rose petals that I left behind were a bother, but a small price to pay for being a parahuman. My first weapon was still laying on my bed when I returned from hiding the rose petals outside. If it wasn't for my gifts, then I would have been driven insane by now.

A set of elongated green pistols with sparkling blades attached at the end of the barrel were resting on the bed. The pair were the result of nearly a month and a half of gruelling working and experimentation. I wasn't often proud, but my creationswere the exception.I had made a beautiful – and functional – pair of pistols that could fold into a pair of short blades.

The “Stormflowers” were much more dangerous and lethal then I was initially comfortable with, but with the prevalence of murder and rape in Brockton Bay it was better than nothing. The machine pistols were unique in that their bullets didn't have casings to eject, and as such I didn't feel the need to include ejection ports. They could also fold into a carrying form that was small enough to hide in most common clothing.

I sighed as I hid the first of my many projects. My progress towards becoming a hero was slow going. I still didn't even have a costume idea yet. The alarm clock on my dresser beeped as it read six o'clock. Time for another run then. A quick look in my dresser revealed my favourite outfit. Black pants and my dark red sweater.

Dad was already in the shower when I made it to the kitchen and prepared a simple breakfast of toast. It felt like I wasn't making progress. So little has changed since gaining my powers a month and a half ago. My hair has slowly darkened, it wasgrowing in black at the roots. It wasn't enough for me to really feel different. My three tormentors haven't even been punished for that stunt before Christmas break. “No evidence”, like it always is.

“Morning” Dad said as he walked in. He went and grabbed a mug of coffee from the machine.

“Morning. I'm heading out for a run.” I said as I cleared the plate I had used.

“Don't forget to bring your pepper spray.” Dad called out.

“Got it!” Running was an escape mechanism when I first started out. Since I discovered my speed, I've only grown to love running more. Sadly, with the morning as bright as it was, and people out and about, I couldn't use my beloved speed.

The air had it's crisp chill that morning. I pulled my thick jacket on and left my neighbourhood. With my first pair of weapons done, it was time to consider my options. The Wards program had support for tinkers like me, and nearly all of the wards were in Arcadia High. There, not only would I gain the education I needed to make best use of my power but I would be free of my tormentors.

On the other hand, they had some pretty strict requirements and restrictions placed on tinkers. That kind of limitation would be extremely suffocating, especially to me. I manly focused on bladed weapons, which were, by definition, lethal. If I wasn't allowed to create lethal weapons I might actually go crazy. My experience with teenagers was slightly coloured, but I feared that I would only be going into another hellhole of drama.

The only other options were New Wave, which required that their members reveal their real identities. While in a family filled with capes it was a fine idea, well not a good idea, but better than it would be for me to reveal my “secret identity”. Dad wasn't a cape and he didn't really have an important enough position to get constant protection if it got out that I was a cape.

I was turning back onto my street again as the solution hit me. As a vigilante I could still make whatever weapons I wanted, but didn't have to reveal my secret identity. Of course I wouldn't have the benefit of a PRT team and not close to enough resources to really build what I wanted, but those kind of restrictions would force me to get creative. Actually, it sounded kinda like a fun little challenge.

Ideas spun around in my head as I felt ideas click together for weapons that relied more on the dust that I grew rather then the raw metals I wouldn't have much access to. I had been faintly aware that I could weave dust into my clothing, but now my mind was overflowing with ideas. I could make a whole suit that was completely energy proof with enough time and dust. Or, Or even something like a cool laser battery! But, that would be far to big... Not if I put it just so with a collapsing frame, with rotating barrels it would have far less bulk too. Kinda like an old miniguns, like those in the World War Two films.

It wasn't until I actually entered the school again that I returned to reality. These 'tinker trances', for lack of a better word, had been extremely distracting at school. Before the locker incident, I had been doing fairly well. My homework was never handed in, but I did above average on tests, so it kinda balanced out. However, now I have a hard time focusing on reality instead of retreating into my tinker powers.

My head exploded in pain as I lost traction on the stairs and feel down the first couple of steps. I didn't need the haughty laughter of Sophia to reveal who had tripped me. I picked my self up and groped around for my glasses. Ah, there they were. I quickly grabbed them and made sure to wipe of any possible grime that could have gotten on them.

“Jesus Hebert, can't even walk up stair anymore?” Sophia's laughter was obnoxious and annoying, and apparently her little clique of friends found it hilarious that I fell down when shoved. Great, and I had such a great morning until now. I stood up and ignored them as I walked to my only enjoyable class.

Computer studies was a very easy class for me to do well it. Maybe it was because it was my escape from Sophia and her gang, or perhaps it was just my natural calling, but even before gaining my powers I was in the advanced class. Since then my heuristic algorithms have only gotten better. While I wasn't a prodigy or even incredible by professional standards, my tinker abilities gave a very cohesive structure to my programs.

As such, the program that was assigned was fairly easy. It was simple to write up a program that calculated the total number of possibilities that could occur in making a subset of numbers. With my work done and saved to the network drive for grading, I still had forty five minutes to burn until this class ended. With that in mind I went onto the Parahuman Online forums and began going through some of the tinker related threads.

The conversations about Kid Win was interesting, but it didn't really reveal anything about tinkers I didn't already know. Sadly a lot of conversations on the boards ended up providing no new information at all. I guess not a lot is really known about powers. However, one thing I do know is that it is rare for a tinker to have another power, not counting for power 'ratings' directly related to the tinker classification.

Which is what made me weird. I had a 'Mover' classification for my speed, but it wasn't related in any manner to my tinkering. Speaking of tinkering, that dust weaving idea for my clothe could be really good. I do know that dust reacts to the 'soul' which I also used with my speed. Hopefully that meant that what ever clothing I made would be able to resist the speeds I could move at.

Also, red dust tends to produce heat when activated. With some careful weaving I could make it so that my costume would keep me warm or cool depending on how I made it. Hell, I could use black cloth and load up on several colours of dust to keep me safe. Blue and yellow should insulate the cloth, and make it repel water. Green to allow for proper breathing, and if push comes to shove, I could use it as a gas mask.

Maybe I should do more work with adding dust to steel alloys. While the green dust I added to the Stormflowers made them ridiculously sharp, maybe I should work with reds? I think I remember hearing that heat makes cuts smother. A small percentage of green dust to red dust will still give me the green features, but could cut though everything that capes could throw at me a little bit better.

I really like red. It was one of my favourite colours. Maybe I shouldn't make my entire costume red? Nah, red is far to amazing not to go overboard with it. It needed something to play off of, but what? I was ripped from my thoughts by the bell going off, sounding the end of the class. I was the first one out of the class, taking an entirely new route to my second period class.

I got to my next class without trouble, only for my desk to have glue smeared across the chair. Great another stupid prank, not even trying to hide the bullying anymore. Why would they when the teacher just ignored it? At least this one was avoidable. I sat at the desk behind my usual one and began to read ahead in my text book. World History was actually a really interesting class, but my grades wouldn't led you to believe that. They were much worse than they should be because of Emma and her little clique of friends. Well, little if half of the student population could be considered small. Which, you know, might be accurate.

We were going through the shipping crisis that had ruined the entire local industry, starting with the arrival of Leviathan. Perhaps we were spending so much time because of the effects it had on Brockton Bay's economy. However, even with the content being so close to home, there's only so many ways to talk about Leviathan before it becomes stale. I mean, yeah he is a giant sea monster that is nigh on unstopable responsible for some of the most deaths in the last century, but almost everyone here already knew that.

What had me interested was the tech boom that came along with the tinkers, particularly the Toybox and the Protectorate grant for tinkers. Of course, it wasn't going to be covered today, but reading about it was a touch more interesting then listening to Mr Gladly pander to the popular kids and making them look better then they were. You know, it sounded kinda patronizing when I phrase it like that. Oh well.

I felt like grinding my teeth, I could have been producing more ammunition for my Stormflowers at home, but instead I was stuck here. The greens would have grown enough for me to use them for some experiments. Thus far, The purple dust was the best shot for 'brute' class concussive rounds, owing to their telekinetic effects. Moving down the spectrum, Red would obviously lend it self well to incendiary rounds, but I don't think that would be very safe to use. Especially if they were faulty.

Actually, considering the amount of energy that the dust crystals held, I could also just throw some dust gems as a contact grenade. It would be wasteful considering how long it takes for the material to grow from my blood. Maybe I should look into alternate ways to grow dust? The microscopic particles in my blood expanded when exposed to air, so maybe I could increase the rate that I harvest the material without bleeding myself dry.

Dust used the “soul” to power or activate itself, so that was a field of study to look into. Perhaps I could try to use my “soul” to induce growth. First, I would have to gain the ability to manipulate my “soul” without activating my speed and the dust itself. I fought a yawn as I looked at the clock. There was still ten minutes for this class. I ignored another class, great. Another weekend working ahead might make up for the lost work, but I couldn't bring myself to care about this stupid school anymore.

Maybe I could go visit the Boardwalk before heading off to work on some projects. Yeah that sounds nice. I could use some tea right about now. It's not like the English classes her actually taught me anything anymore. Math was beyond easy with my freshly gained powers, so not a huge loss their either. Yeah, I think I would sneak out to go get something to drink and skip my afternoon classes.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

I liked this little rustic cafe. It had nice lighting, very softly reflecting off of the clean flooring. The tables were some form of hardwood that was a soft brown in colour. Maybe juniper wood? I have no idea, but that sounded right. Moving on, the benches on the booths I sat at were nice and comfy, almost enough to drift to sleep after a long night of tinkering.

The prices were very fair, for how good the tea was here. The taste of the sencha was soft and subtle, with a little bit of a tangy aftertaste. Very good, to say the least. With moist muffins, I will have to spend more time in this homey little cafe to work on homework or something. God, this was so good it might as well be criminal.

Not to imply that I was doing homework right now. I was kinda lucky that my powers made some of the homework trivial, as that left me with a little more time to myself. Right now I was doing some free hand drawing, superficially for art class. I avoiding any weapons or tinker stuff like that, just focusing on landscapes. It was nice to just lose myself to the transformation of soft curves into climbing steeps of beautiful mountain ranges over a cold tundra.

It was a nice view, but it was missing something. Ah! It needed a name! So what to name to picture of natural beauty? Something sincere and low key. Nothing majestic to ruin the simple beauty it held. I flipped the picture over and signed my name while thinking. “The Climb” didn't quite nail down it's meaning to me. I needed something solemn, remote, but not cold. Unreachable but not distant...

 _The Watcher_.

I scrawled out my chosen title for the piece feeling a small bloom of pride as I flipped the page back to the drawing of the tall, solemn mountain top. It was nothing special, just a little picture, but it meant so much more to me. It was a part of me, giving shape and form. I always loved sketching, but this is likely the best I've done yet.

I reached for my mug of tea, leaning back into my very soft seat. The warm liquid was a beautiful, simple pleasure to my tongue. A sigh escaped me as I let my cramped hand loosen up, releasing the small tension there with pops and cracks. I think I was going to need some new pencils actually. That would be so much easier than trying to use the tiny little nubs I have right now.

A woman walked up to me. She was of average height, a bit taller than me. Her jacket was damp, so it was probably snowing again. Her bright reddish blond hair seemed to clash with her pale skin. Bright green eyes sparkled over her sunglasses as she bent down and picked up a very familiar sheet of paper. On it's face was an intricate design of a combat android in an action pose. Wires stretched out of the short haired robot's back, connecting it to several single edged daggers.

“I think you dropped this,” Her voice was cheery, kinda what you got if you crossed a happy dog and preening child. “Did you draw this? It's really good!” She shrugged off her jacket, threw it on the far side of the booth and plopped down across from me. Her short hair went together well with her nice skirt and neat “BOOP!” T-shirt.

“Um, yeah thanks,” My voice came out soft and hesitant, but I felt a small smile creep across my face. “I liked that one too.”

“Liked it? Are you joking? This is so~ cool! She's all like, in charge and kicking ass! Do you do comics? You should totally do comics!” Her voice was fast, that was certain. She was holding my sketch at arms length and kinda bouncing in place, something I'm sure guys would love.

“Do you want to keep it?” Her energy was infectious. My hesitant smile had already bloomed into a full, cheek stretching smile. I forced a small ball of anxiety down before it could get to me.

“Really? Thank you so much!” Her smile grew even bigger, how was that even possible? “This is so cool! I was just coming for a late morning snack but I get to meet this super cool artist!”

“It's the afternoon?” I tried to hold back my amusement, I really hope it didn't show on my face.

“Like I said, late morning!” I couldn't hold back anymore and broke into stifled giggles. “I'm Sam, great to meet you.”

“I'm Taylor, the pleasure's mine.” I gently placed my sheets in order so that I wouldn't forget them. “So, how's your day going?” That was the right pleasantry right? I hope so...

“Amazing! I got this really neat picture from my new friend.” Sam's voice was giddy and she jumped up, out of the bench suddenly. “Buuuut I need to go get something to eat! I'll be right back TayTay!” She skipped up to the counter and began to have an energetic discussion with the cashier. She was definitely something else, but in a kinda refreshing way? It made more sense than endearingly overwhelming in any case. Sam came bounding back a plate with a piece of cheese cake on it. It was then that I realized something terrifying.

She was a _People Person._

“They make the best cheese cake ever here.” Sam slid back down across from me and practically melted with the first bite. Not that she had been that up tight before, but the effect was more than noticeable in contrast. “So you some freelance artist or something.”

“Ah no, it's just a hobby.” Sam's head snapped up, her mouth in a small ‘o’ as her eye brows rose.

“Whaa? No way, you totally need to sell this, it's so nice!” Heat rushed up to be cheeks as I looked away. That cause Sam to giggle. “So what do you draw then? You did so good on this action thing. Why don't I see if one of my other buddies like this and you can sell others?”

I fought the growing heat in my face and focused on the other side of the window. “I'm not that good.” My voice was soft and hesitant when it came out.

“You're awesome! Like, this is so nice. It must have taken years to get this good!” Sam continued to go on, while eating the very appetizing desert. “I could never do this, not in a million years!”

“It's, uh, not that hard,” I had to fight hard against the rising surge of emotions to stutter out even my meagre response.

“Well, _I_ can't draw like this. Funny really, I work at Dynamite and can't do anything this good.” Sam was less energetic now, but I don't think it counts when you were that excitable to begin with.

“Um, is that the new comic company?”

“Well, _technically_ we are supposed to call it a 'Graphic Novel Publishing House', but I wont tell if you don't,” Sam had her had out beside her mouth like she was telling me these grand secrets of the universe. That set me off giggling again. It felt nice to laugh. “You know, we _are_ hiring right now. I'll see if I can't get you hired.”

“You, um, don't have to. Not that I don't appreciate it or anything, but you don't have to go out of your way for me.” Just kill me now. Like right now. Any moment now....

“Nonsense! I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't give you a hand, now would I be?” Clearly Emma hadn't heard that memo yet. Ugh, less depressing self focus, more not looking like an idiot.

“I guess that makes- Hey wait, we just met.”

“Yup” Sam popped her p. “So friend o'mine, can I grab your number. Need to give it to the boss so he can hire you.”

“... Why?” I felt like garbage, but I had to ask. No one has ever gone out of their way for me and I have a feeling that this is no different.   
  
“I guess I can understand why you don't trust me. I am practically a stranger at this point.” Sam's smile didn't disappear, in so much that it just changed. It was much sadder now. Guilt clawed at me inside. “We really do need another artist right now, our old one was shot and died in the hospital. That doesn't mean that I don't want to be your friend, or that I didn't want to get you that job. I'm told that I can be impulsive at times, and well, you looked lonely.” She wasn't lying, although I don't think she would have tried either. She felt too genuine to lie like that.

“I'm sorry, I guess I'm not that great a friend.” I felt like utter garbage. Here she comes, and while yes she benefited, she was honestly trying to help and I act like a paranoid bitch. Sam’s face glowed as she beamed at me.

“I forgive you! That’s what it means to be friends.” She grabbed my hands and shoved a piece of paper within. “Here’s my phone number, can I have yours?”

“I uh, kinda don’t have a cellphone right now. Would my email be fine?” She nodded and took another bite of her cake while I scrawled my email address onto a napkin. Almost as soon as I lifted my pen, Sam yanked the paper and studied it closely.

“Okay, I got it. So, what do you wanna chat about? I have like five more minutes before I need to head to work.” She shoved the paper into her jacket’s pocket while I carefully folded the one with her cellphone number into my pocket.

“Um...” Come on, there has to be something interesting in my life. Something, anything really...

... Shit, I have nothing.

“Oh, you’re shy! I’m so sorry for putting you on the spot. Oh please don’t hate me. I don’t want to lose another friend.” Sam had my hand grasped in her own and looked upset.

“Ah, no, it’s fine. Everything is just kinda sudden, you know?” I made some kind of calming motion with my hands that seemed to work, both of them splayed out and gently moving backwards and forwards.

“Great! We should totally hang out more then.” She gave me a happy grin. “We could totally go see a movie or something.”

“That could be fun.” I tried to be optimistic, but I think my voice betrayed something.

“Oh, don’t be so sad! Movies are fun, and you’ll have popcorn and laugh a lot.” Her phone gave a nifty little jingle. Sam frowned and pulled it out. “Ah, the boss wants me back five minutes ago. Sorry, I’ll mail you soon.”

“Bye, have a good evening.” I guess I have a new friend? One that is completely overwhelming, but I think that still counts as +1 friend. Too bad that I am still hovering at like -33 friends right now. I finished my tea and left to head back home. Maybe I could work on a costume, it would be a fun exercise to work with cloth now.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It took another week, even with using my speed, but I finished my costume. It was a beautifully simple thing, a red cloak with a black and red skirt. I was wearing was the final piece of my set, a black long sleeve shirt that was fairly roomy. Each piece stitched together from some dust enhanced cloth that I produced near the beginning. Honestly it wasn't the best work, but it would keep me safe from a lot. Next time, I am going to make the cloth from scratch. Purchased cloth just didn't hold as much dust as individual threads could if I learnt to make the cloth itself. Plus it would be cheaper to make, probably, maybe.

Of course, my next big project was just begging me to finish it. Honestly, why didn't others ever think to make a scythe as a weapon? Well, besides the obvious investment of training it takes to learn to use. I guess that without my own thinker sub-power I wouldn't have been able to learn how to use the temporary scythe I built that quickly.

It wasn't really a power actually. The best way to explain it would be as an extension of my tinkering. I wasn't building weapons then gaining the ability to use them, instead I was building weapons that I already understood how to use. When I gained my tinker knowledge, basic weapon handling had been included in the “package” I gained. The thinker version would be learning how to use any weapon I held, according to PHO. In either case, it didn't impart me with the muscle memory to make full use of that knowledge, hence my training regiment.

The full scythe's blade was completed and I had it fitted onto a dummy scythe for now. While the dummy didn't have any of the collapsible components that the final product would have, it was properly weighted and shaped that it would act in a comparable manner to the final product. The true project was resting on the work bench. The entire mechanism was going to be one of the most complicated things I could dream of, unless you count huge things like planes or towers and stuff like that.

I sighed as I began to peel out another piece of the chamber mechanism from the Walmart clay mold. While the actual process of creating can be amazing, these small inconveniences made it terrible. Hell, I didn't even have a proper forge, instead relying on a red dust stove to burn impurities and melt down the various materials I salvaged from the graveyard.

Without an anvil, I couldn't hammer out the pieces. So I was left with making molds and forming each by casting them. The actual process of casting left a bitter taste in my mouth while I was working on the chamber. Sure, using dust augmentation meant that cast iron wasn't as brittle as it normally was, the end result still would have been better with hammered pieces.

This particular piece was going to be made of a blue-yellow-red alloy that would give it the resistance it needed to fire the calibre of bullets I was planning on using. The sniper component of the project was the annoying part. It hardly took me two weeks to build the frame for the weapon, but it would take another couple of weeks, if not months, before the scythe gained the ability to fire bullets.

The clock on the basement wall announced it to be an hour till midnight. A smile crept onto my face as I shed the remaining fragments of my civilian attire and changed into my costume. I didn't make a pair of leggins for this costume, mainly because I didn't have the knowledge or skill to make clothing that precisely. Instead I had a civilian pair purchased from the bargain bin.

I had been researching into the proper techniques, but that was not strictly necessary for my first patrol. My skirt was covering down to my knees and my combat boots had support all the way to the midsection of my calf. The only reason I really needed it was to preserve my modesty rather than to protect myself.

I left the small dilapidated house I had taken over for my new workshop. The basement had access to the abandoned sewers and let me discretely enter and leave the condemned building. The upper floors had collapsed onto the lower floors, making it impossible for anyone other than fliers or another kind of mover to enter. For my first patrol I was heading out towards the slums that the merchants gang had control over.

The merchants were a pathetic gang, but they still mugged people. In fact, I had heard rumours that there were rapes going on in the territory fairly frequently. That combined with the lack of threatening capes, like Lung or Kaiser, made for an easy night. Go out, stop a couple crimes and get my name out there. That way, when the Crescent was done I wouldn't be judged by my baby alone. She might look a little to scary for people if I used her right away.

I left the sewers from an open pipe under the boat graveyard. It took a couple minutes to get out of the maze of disregarded pipes that had never been used, a new tinker system that wasn't completely implemented. It wasn't as impressive or even noteworthy as the other areas where tinker tech and become common place, but these new sewers were supposed to be more durable, and more importantly, “secure” from Endbringers. Well, if the city had bothered to properly fund the project, then we would have known.

Just another case of good inventions being ruined by governments. I guess I shouldn't be complaining too much since it was working out in my favour. The boat graveyard was a dark maze of washed up boats and ruined dreams. Fitting, in a way, that I would be starting my own dream here. Being a hero wasn't going to be some grand sport like the normals tend to consider it, but a monumental task that will never be done.

Weapons check: Stormflowers, sixteen magazines of various types for each, two crystal “grenades” suspended in saline solution, first aid kit, flares, pepper spray and one sandwich. What? It's not like I would be sleeping anyway.

I called upon my “soul” to power a dash on top of the smokestack of an older steam vessel. I arrived with a crown of rose petals floating down from above my head. Certainly using my “soul” like this did consume some of my own energy, but even for these long dashes I almost never noticed the drain. Much like how a normal would consider lifting a pencil to be trivial.

Huh, when did I stop considering myself normal? Was it during the bullying, or only since I gained powers?

Another pillar in the distance, another dash, and I was gone. The wind from this height carried the petals away, cleansing my path of any evidence. I giggled as I jumped off the smoke stack, relishing in the blasting of wind past my body. Even with approaching the grounds at ridiculous speeds, I wasn't satisfied. Another dash, directly downwards this time, increase my speed even more.

My knee impacted the ground as my other leg spread out to keep my balance. The only tell that I had even done the stupidly dangerous stunt was the disappearance of a more significant portion of my “soul”. That is, until the air I had displaced blasted directly on me. I was fine, protect by my “soul” again, but the ground became compressed as a small crater formed.

I have no idea why going fast made me feel so free, but the waves of sheer joy I felt was intoxicating. Again I had to stifle my giggle to prevent myself from breaking out into laughter. Another reason that running had become such a major part of my civilian lifestyle I guess. My smile was so big that it was beginning to hurt my cheeks. This must be how Sam feels. I should check my email again when I have time.

The ground was tough enough, so I began to run along the side walks of the gang infested slums of my city. The draining sensation happened again, as my body continued to accelerate beyond human limits. This way I was limiting the amount of petals I produced. Then again, I wasn't really the blur I normally was, or even faster than most motorcycles could naturally go.

Sadly, this wasn't another day I dedicated to just running. So instead of pouring more of my “soul” into my speed, I maintained what I've already achieved. My powers didn't actually tell me exactly _how_ fast I was going, but if I had to guess, I would say at least seventy kilometres per hour. The pleasant feelings of my speed finally abated to more of a subtle happiness then a shot of morphine.

The moonless sky above hid me fairly well in it’s shadows, but also served to hide the cancerous gangs from my sight. Oh well, it's not like anything important would happen in complete silence. I could afford to spend more time. It's not like my first night was guaranteed to be eventful.

A loud blast of music distracted me, coming from a suddenly active sedan. Inside their was two people, both male, in costumes that looked like a stereotypical gangsters. They each had a machine gun of some sort, but if I'm honest, I have no idea what popular consumer guns looked like beyond the basics.

The sedan was obviously souped up and they speed out of the drive way recklessly, but nothing reprehensible yet. Then I noticed the small humming bird camera. Ah, so this was Uber, or Ub3r, and Leet, or L33t. As far as parahuman criminals goes, these guys are as small as it gets. Half the time they actually pay back any damages with the profit of their web show anyway. Doesn't excuse their action, but with how fucked up some of the other villains get, they almost never get any serious attention.

Their whole gimmick was mimicking video game characters and having a semi illegal show with their powers. So lets see, tinkertech car, obvious gangster image, guns. I don’t know many games, and the first that comes to mind is that controversial game from a while ago. Grand Theft Auto I think. They are totally going to do Grand Theft Auto. The amount of people who've been asking for this on the internet meant it would happen eventually.

So what to do? Keep following them for sure, but if I did something before they showed any intent to preform illegal actions I would be the “bad guy”. As much as it pains me, if I come off as a villain, which is very easy with a mostly black and red costume, the chances of remaining independent lowers dramatically. The protectorate doesn't like having “loose cannons” like “me”.

The vehicle came to stop up ahead, with one of the two coming out to talk with some scantly clad women. If I wasn't already suspicious, I might have missed what happened next. He hit one of the woman in the side with a crowbar. Where did he get the crowbar? The woman folded and he made a move to attack another of the prostitutes with his weapon.

Of course, I interrupted him. The rose storm that my powers create dissipated so very slowly, and Uber and Leet weren't doing anything, at all. I sighed as I hid my smile, suppressing the giddiness that I always felt. They hadn't moved at all since I had appeared, but I had a feeling that they had their guns trained on me. That what I would do anyway.

“Who the hell are you?” the man in the painfully colourful clothing shouted. Sounded like Leet, so the one in the darker clothing was Uber. It was an understandable reaction. My cloak had a voluminous hood and a section that went over my nose, hiding my identity fairly well. Of course, my costume made me look a lot younger than I really was, so maybe they were unnerved? I mean, younger capes tend to be overpowered. Proof? Vista, the absolute space warper, is still in middle school.

I couldn't help but use my prepared introduction, even if it was a little on the melodramatic side. A polite curtsy and a slight bow of my head, “Ruby Rose.” Ah yes, my cape name was essentially red red. I really like red, shut up. The roses were pretty much clear by this time, so I could make out Uber's head sticking out of the side window of the vehicle, staring right at me.

“Get out of here kid, this ain't no place for children.” On one hand, it's kinda frustrating to be treated _that_ young, on the other, at least it shows that they wouldn’t hurt children.

“You guys should really stop.” Fuck, even my attempts at diplomacy sounds like I'm fourteen. Of course, it's not like I get a lot of social interaction anymore, the only one I really remember was Sam a week ago, but still! I should be more respectable. I shifted my weight back onto my heals, bouncing a little bit, as they didn't respond for a least fifteen second.

“Uh, No?” Leet said, lilting his head. “Did you come all the way here to reprimand us?”

“I think she did Leet.” Really, they were making this into a joke.

“Kids these days, not even thinking before going out.” They were essentially mocking me now.

“Back in my day, being a villain got you respect. Now even little girls think they can tell us what to do.” This is ridiculous.

“I betcha she thinks she can stand up to Lung.”

“Nah, she's not that stupid.”

“She tried to stop us by asking nicely.”

“Point taken”

“So what do we do now? We can't really kill her.”

“Dude, we never murder people anyway.”

“Okay, fair, but we can’t really hurt her either.”

“We could bribe her.” Okay, they are just ignoring me now.

“Would that even work? I don't know if kids like money.”

“Why don't you ask her?”

“Fine, hey girl – what the hell is that?” Oh, now they notice me. It only took me drawing my weapons from my pouches for them to even take me seriously. Let's see, I think I had concussive rounds in right now? Yup, the magazines had the little purple sun on the side.

“You really should have stopped.” I said, my voice rather quiet.

“Leet, get in the car.” Uber called out, getting back into the drivers seat. Leet broke into a run back to the sedan, but a triplet of gun shots caught him behind each knee and one in the centre of his back. It was almost funny to watch him comically crumple and roll on the ground. He managed to stop spinning and was shaking as he tried to stand up.

Of course, the back of the knee was particularly vulnerable. I wouldn't be surprise if I gave him a charlie horse with the little purple explosions. Uber rose his machine gun and let out a stream of gunfire on me. Even with it probably, hopefully, not being lethal ammo, I dodged. A light touch of speed gave my jump the strength it needed to pull myself into another alley.

This time, only four petals spawned in my path. Of course, the lack of speed in my jump allowed Uber to easily follow me with gun fire. As it was, I couldn't move past the corner without getting riddled with the bullets. Unless I cheated, which was totally the plan. It wasn't even a difficult jump to get to the top of the ruined house I was hiding behind.

Now that I had the height advantage, I could see that Uber had left the car and was going to give Leet a hand with walking, all the while keeping perfectly paced suppressive fire on the alley I just left. Leet's movement had a rather pitiful limp to it. He wasn't completely out of the fight yet, as he kept his gun trained on the alley way I had hidden behind. My Stormflowers were accurate, but they lack any form of sight to make aiming easier. The blades wouldn't do anything at this distance. Really wished I had the sniper scythe right now.

Another running jump took me to a building behind the duo. Thankfully, since I was only using the lightest touch of my speed, I didn't leave any petals behind. Thank God they were completely focused on the alley way. Otherwise they might have picked up my movement. Okay, so now I was behind them, with two pretty much full magazines of ammo in my guns.

This time, I shot eight shots. Four at the back of their knees again, another directly at their guns and the final set behind their heads. And I missed the second half of my shots. What a waster of bullets. They fell down again, before trying to roll over and take aim at me. A dash took me right on top of Uber.

Quite predictably, Leet held his gunfire. Uber tried to shove me off him, and I let him. Taking advantage of the momentum, I used my speed to draw a bead on his head and place a bullet between his eyes. The projectile collapsed when it hit him and release a circular blast of purple energy, rendering Uber unconscious.

A blast of pain arced across my back as I jumped back, landing on the second story balcony of a warehouse. My shoulder was numb, and with that I couldn't move my arm. The costume around my shoulder was glowing a cherry red as it tried to distribute the energy. Huh, I guess the dust compound was too thin to completely block blast of whatever that was. Wait, where was my gun?

Crap, my second Stormflower was on the ground beside Uber. Leet was holding a rifle formed of rounded pieces of metal that gave it a science fiction feel. The ends of the gun was crackling with visible arcs of electricity. He was on one knee and had a hand fiddling with a touch screen on the side of the gun.

I couldn't actually read the display, but it seemed that it displayed the power output or the charge remaining in the rifle. A shock crystal was fished out of my left pouch and tossed at Leet. It landed at his feet and bounced twice, before exploding in a storm of lighting. The energy stopped inches from Leet, disappearing rather than discharging.

So he had energy shields. I guess that different kinds of shields weren't so similar to each other for him to make more than one. While Uber was a thinker that could master any skill, he was still just human. Leet was a tinker that could make anything, but only make it once. Why didn't he have this energy shield activated earlier.

Ah, it was probably an electrical shielding unit, not a general shield. As such, my kinetic rounds didn't trigger the shield, where the blue crystal had. I hid behind the wall as Leet began to unload several conventional rounds into the building. So electrical energy would be prevented, but kinetic and likely thermal energy wasn't blocked. If Crescent Rose was ready, then this wouldn't be a problem. The Stormflowers didn't have the right calibre to effectively take Leet down from this range, not without wasting too many bullets to be economic.

The other crystal was blue as well, so no help there. Pepper spray and flare? Not much good. I could use my more dangerous rounds, but that didn't feel right. Leet had apparently gotten to his car and pulled some lever or something, because I could hear the car's engine cut off slowly. The bullets didn't stop, so I couldn't imagine was he was doing to the vehicle. The door on the other end of the room lead to the roof, and if I dashed I could probably make it, but it would tip my actual power set to the whole world.

I dropped the brute concussion magazine out and loaded my only flash magazine in. The yellow sun image disappeared as the magazine entered the Stormflowers. Breathe in, Breathe out. Two single shots, each carefully aimed, at the edge of the door frame. The blast shouldn't effect me, as I had my eyes closed, but it would throw off the aim of Leet. Hopefully.

I threw a large sum of my “soul” into my speed as I dashed to the roof across the alley. This petal storm was rather large, but I made it to the other side of the alley. This time I flattened myself on the slate as I kept the remaining gun facing forwards. \

What? Where did they go?

On the ground where the duo had been, some sort of gun on a tripod had been left behind. The pavement had no skid marks to show where the vehicle had gone. Drat. If I had a phone, I could either call this in to the PRT or check the pair’s stream to see where they went. Without one, I was stuck without a plan.

I jumped down to the ground and moved to check up on the women the pair had attacked. The others had dispersed, with obvious reason, but the remaining hooker was still crumpled on the ground. Her pulse was still strong when I checked, and her face didn’t _look_ broken, so she was probably okay. I tried to wake her, but even a strong rousing didn’t do anything.

Nothing for it then. My body complained for her weight as I slung her into a fireman’s carry and began running, with my full _speed_ towards the nearest hospital. I just hope she had insurance to pay for her medical care. It would suck if she was in debt already only to be plunged further because of two selfish, careless idiots.


	2. Scatter 1-2

Remnants

Scatter 1-2  
The new hero

-0-0-0-0-0-

Monday, for many it was a word meaning suffering and exhaustion. The start of another long week of work or study. I rather like Mondays. Sophia still attempts to make my day terrible, but the other two are much less likely to spend effort to search for me. Perhaps they are just a tired as normal people on Mondays, or they might want to catch up and socialize with each other after not seeing each other for a weekend.

Either way, I love Mondays. I actually have a chance to hand in homework without it being damaged, I can get to my desk without worrying about it being defaced. Of course, it was different today, because I was different. I was officially an independent hero. I've saved people, and now it feels terribly mundane to just be sitting in class.

Not to say that programming wasn't interesting, just that it was terribly normal after what I've done over the weekend. I finished early, like normal. So I took my traditional trip to Parahuman Online to prowl the message boards. Of course, rather than idle searching about tinkers, I was immediately attracted to the post that had my cape name in the title.

Oh wow. Over twenty pages of speculation already? I knew that Uber and Leet were popular, but to have this many people who watched their channel already talking about me felt like the ground itself was swaying bellow me. I opened a couple of my usual tinker discussions before braving the storm that was the Ruby Rose thread.

Let's see, they think I'm some sort of plant based changer? Neat theory. The comments raged from guessing my age to guessing my powers. According to the most popular theories, I was either a changer/mover or a shaker. Then I saw the more perverted comments. Most posters were outright banned, but I still felt my skin crawl at the thought.

It was humbling too, seeing so many people interested in me. Before now, I was always the nobody, the shadows best ignored. Once I appeared in front of Uber and Leet, I became a cape, one of the important people. Here were hundreds of people analyzing footage of my first appearance for just a clue as to who Ruby Rose was.

The bell rang soon after that, leaving me with only a little over half of the thread unread. Another new path to my next class and I made it without any hassle from Sophia. Again, I read ahead before hand, so I had very little to do as everyone else grouped up and worked through the reading assignment Mr. Gladly gave us.

Well, working was a little bit of a stretch. Most of the class was just chat about their weekends rather then doing any of the work. I couldn't really work on doing any tinkering while in class, but I could read ahead in the physics text book. It aside from being a naturally good learner, ever since I gained my abilities Kinematics and Physics in general have become a joke.

Of course, my academic success was noted by my tormentors. It only served to irritate them further. I was eating on top of the collapsed bleachers when they made their daily attempt. It was Madison and Emma. Their voice were steadily getting louder, although I couldn't understand what they were talking about. I quickly finished my sandwich, using a touch of my speed to ensure I was done before they could ruin my meal.

I was chewing my last bite when I heard the gym doors open. Thankfully I was out of direct sight of the entry way, so I still had a chance to hide before they found me. Hopefully they weren't looking for me, since I could sneak out of here with my speed if they didn't know I was here. No such luck, they were walking straight towards me, so they had to know where I was.

"Look at her, it's almost like she has no friends." Oh, that's sadly a very pleasant surprise. They're just talking.

"Who would want to be friends with a pathetic moron like her anyways." Yes, just like Emma to call me pathetic. Well, if they're just going to talk that's fine. I can just walk away. They were staying just in ear shot as I walked to the doors, only to find Sophia on the other side with a sadistic smile on her face.

That's odd, what did they think they could do to me without the strong one of them on this side of the doors. I didn't like hearing them going on and on about my faults, but they were just words. It felt terribly pointless to get upset about them demeaning me while I was helping people and stopping villains.

I was surprised by how much it still hurt to hear them insult me. Fine, if I couldn't fight back, it would simpler to just leave. I made sure I had all of my belongings, not wanting to lose anything more to the bitches. Satisfied, I left the side doors of the gym and made my way to my hidden workshop. Screw school, I wasn't going to fight to stay and suffer.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It was almost midnight, but my scythe was pretty much done. The entire mechanism was finished and I tested it out. It folding out into both it's rifle form and the full scythe form from the compact carrying form it started in. It was a beautiful red with black accents for the designs.

Technically, I didn't have the entire project completed, just enough to upgrade my arsenal with some dedicated close range weaponry. Unlike the collapsing mechanism, which could be completed with clever design alone, the firing chamber and related parts require much more specialized equipment. As it was, the pieces would serve, but until I got a proper anvil set up, it would have to be repaired constantly, and that was if it even managed to fire! I felt my jaw clench as I let out a terribly loud yawn.

I went to sleep early on most Mondays, but I couldn't sleep without finishing at least this much. Of course, I would have to clean up my workshop from the storm of petals that were still settling on the ground. Using my speed to work much faster did allow me to get a lot more done in short periods of time, but it made a huge mess. Look at me, I was complaining about having powers again.

By the time I was finished with the petals lining my workshop, it was time to dash home so that I could get enough sleep to recover my "soul" from the amount I used tonight. According to Uber and Leet's schedule, they had another show planned for Wednesday. Hopefully I wouldn't have to use my Crescent Rose on them. That would be messy.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Uber and Leet were wearing completely different costumes from the last time I saw them. One of them was in a red and blue outfit that looks vaguely like Mario. If you ignored the fuel tanks he had strapped to his back. The other was a large turtle that was spewing fire. I'm more that willing to bet that the "Bowser" costume was a set of armour for Leet, making the Mario look a like Uber. Fire actually works in my favour, since my current set up was essentially fire proof (Okay it actually was a thermal energy redirection, but close enough).

It looks like the duo were attacking a bank. I guess they were stealing "coins" for their show this weak. Uber had already burned down the reception area with his flames while Leet was forcing the blast doors open. This time, I loaded my Stormflowers with my electrocution rounds. I didn't want to take any chances with Uber this time. Crescent Rose was too big to effectively use in the small corridors of the bank.

If I let Uber stack to many skills, particular in guerrilla warfare, it would be nearly impossible to defeat him. Uber was a lot like Lung actually, the moment he stacks above a critical number of skills, he becomes monstrous to defeat. Greg told me something about that, saying that he was the Quadratic Wizard to Leet's Linear Warrior. I have no idea what that actually means, but hey, I remembered it at least.

I dashed from the roof I was hiding behind, landing without a sound behind the mint. I used the blades on my Stormflowers to cut around the locking mechanism. It was technically illegal, but I'm pretty sure no one will notice. The arid smoke was already wafting through the vents, thankfully it seemed to be mostly smokeless flames. The hallways were clear of people, the evacuation drills clearly helping. It was sad that every government business in the city had to have parahuman response drills.

My twin machine pistols were in their machete form as I ran through the building. The vaults were predictably in the centre of the building, but I had an advantage that my opponents didn't. The blast doors on my side of the building to the vault remain open for an additional ten minutes after the alarm triggers to allow employees to evacuate the building. Sure it doesn't leave the vault open for me to hide inside, but it does give me the chance to dash towards the intersection that Uber and Leet will have to go through to get to the vault.

I skidded to stop just as the doors behind be closed. No turning back now. The large clomps of Leet's enhanced footsteps echoed ominously around the small hallway. The stench of smoke was getting stronger, with wisps of some sneaking out of the vents around me. I took a napkin enhanced with green dust and placed it between the two layers of the cloak that covered my face. Ah, the smell of clean air was a relief.

The large doors of steel reverberated with a large thud as they were forced inwards about an inch. I quickly hid in an office as the heavy impacts continued. Taking the time, I flipped my Stormflowers into their pistol form. Another three and the blast doors gave in with a rather loud crash. My vantage point was clear from the vent, allowing me to clearly see the large turtle stomp into the hall.

"Uber, I found the vault. Follow the path I made for you." I heard Leet say out loud. So they were using normal communication technology. I had both my guns levelled at the doorway as time ticked by. The moment that Uber appeared, I let loosed eight shots, one at each limb, one at the head and three targeting the centre of mass.

The dust projectiles disappeared the moment they got close to Uber. I was forced back by the stream of fire that responded. Fuck, Uber was using Leet's energy shield. The giant turtle suit wasn't fast, so I released a couple of shots before being pushed all the way back into the office. Leet's machine let out a whine, but otherwise remained standing.

The sensation of being on fire while still at a comfortable temperature was surreal. My hands were tingling. Note to self; make proper gloves to protect my hands. A quick couple of slashes with my Stormflowers cut a sizeable chuck of drywall out of the wall. I wasted no time in kicking the wall into the next room and escaping from the fire that was slowly filling the room.

I slammed head first into a metal rack, causing me to spin and tumble down the rows of computers. It took a couple tries, but I managed to get my feet under me and stand up before I could hit anything else. Uber was still filling the room I just left with the thick flames. From the sounds of metal impacts, Leet was probably opening the vault door.

I peaked out the door and watched as Leet's robot/power armour had trouble getting through the brute class platting that protected the vault. Uber's tanks didn't have anything that would indicate a fuel capacity. From the way he was spraying the room liberally with fire, he didn't seem to worry about a fuel limit. His energy shield probably covered thermal energy too, as he wasn't wearing any projection on his hands while shooting out flames.

Inverted burn dust would solve this problem, but I had only just managed to make some yesterday. I could use the uncut crystal I brought with me, but that was temporary at best. My hands felt warm, and looked an unhealthy pink. I had surprise the first time I fought the duo, but my hands were already damaged, if only slightly, and it didn't look like I had any weapons to really hurt them.

Of course, I only brought by shock ammo and the brute concussion rounds. If only I had brought all my prepared magazines instead of only my non lethal combat rounds. Even the useless flare rounds would have given me something to work with! I had a bunch of crystals with me, but they were selected to help me make my escape.

It was becoming increasingly clear that Leet had designed today's gear to counter me. The fire wasn't going out, instead lingering behind to hinder my movement. Of course I was largely immune to it, but I still didn't want to risk running head first into the flames. The energy shield and power armour prevented my electrical rounds. The brute rounds weren't going to work on armour, and Uber would have already added "Bullet Dodging" to the skills he had mastered. Oh, it, probably, wasn't a sure thing that he was going to dodge, but if he did I was screwed. Hell! I was screwed even if I hit because I couldn't get rid of Leet.

If Uber's power was only a single skill at a time, then I might have had a chance, or if their was a delay between adding skills. Actually, the robot might be easier to get rid of at this point. It didn't have a "soul" so my dust blades would be that much more effective against it. I put away one of my Stormflowers and pulled out a force crystal. Hopefully, the purple gem would create a large enough disruption that I could get something done.

My shoulder complained when I imbued my speed into my throwing arm. Huh, non-uniform applications of my speed hurt me. I brushed the rose petals out of my face as the dust crystal bounced once between Uber and Leet before my "soul" managed to activate it. On the bright side, I now had confirmation that my delayed activation technique worked. The shell of energy crushed the robot into the vault door, while Uber was thrown into the wall. Of course, he absorbed the shock with his knees and minimized the damage, probably from a parkour skill.

It did give me a chance to dash by and slice important looking bits of the Bowser suit though. I had to spin away in a cloud of petals as Uber ran up behind me, likely with mastery of at least three different martial arts. I used my free hand to pull out a pair of heavy brute concussion magazines out of my left most pouch and load them into both of my Stormflowers. The purple sun on these rounds had a black eight in the middle of the design. While it was a large degree of overkill to use them on Uber, Leet's power armour needed to be taken down before I made my escape.

"Time on repairs?" Uber's voice called out.

"Two minutes for full repair, function in thirty seconds." Fuck, it had self repair capabilities. That changed things. Even if I thrashed the suit, it would remove it from Leet's arsenal or even delay them that long. I placed my Stormflowers back in my sleeves, reaching for my uncut inverted burn crystal. It should absorb the thermal energy to the point that the fires will be unable to continue producing heat.

"Switching to metal Mario." Uber informed Leet, followed my the sound of metal plates unfolding and locking together. A very similar sound to my transforming weapons. Had Leet been inspired by my Stormflowers? That didn't make sense, as he never saw me unfold them. Then how did he make a suit using my technology?

The loud metal footsteps brought me back to the real world. I was on the opposite end of the blast doors they had smashed open, with the exoskeleton of Uber creeping closer to me. The 'tanks' on his back seemed to have disappeared, but that wasn't a priority right now. The inverted crystal hit him square on the forehead and rapidly turned from the green with red core it was before to a solid red crystal. Then the flames began going out as the crystal began to expand slowly, feasting on the offered energy. It landed on the ground roughly and began to expand faster as it consumed even more energy.

Uber slowed as the metal in his suit began to contract. I dashed by, stopping only a moment to grab the still growing dust crystal, and left the hallway. The dust began to consume the flames that the flamethrower had left behind, growing marginally with all of the flames in the building releasing thermal energy. By the time that I managed to get out of the building, the dust had grown to twice it's original volume.

A quick pulse of my "soul", and the dust stopped it's consumption of energy. Honestly, I knew that dust had an incredibly large energy density, but only doubling the volume from all of that heat? I placed the newly grown burn dust in my pouch as I dashed on top of the rooftop opposite from the bank. Thankfully, it was sufficiently windy to blow the petals away.

PRT response was about a block away, alarms and lights on full blast. It was only a couple minutes since Uber and Leet had broken into the building. Suddenly the air behind me was displaced. I spun around to see a rather tall man wearing streamline white armour with blue decal and a blue visor, Assault of the Protectorate.

"Hey, your that new hero that fought Uber and Leet right?" Assault asked, his lips curved in a wide smile. Well, I wasn't planning on meeting the Protectorate, but I had a persona already decided for such an eventuality.

"Yup, Ruby Rose. It's a pleasure." I forced my voice to be bubbly while I gave a polite curtsy.

"So, what happened here?"

"Uber and Leet are doing Mario, Leet is in a set of power armour that repairs itself and Uber can both launch fire and cover himself in a folding set of metal armour." I looked away as I continued, "I couldn't really stop them though."

Assault didn't say anything for a moment, before he broke off laughing. "So you bit off more that you could chew huh. Well, let me give you a hint. Tinkers are complete bullshit. Anything you can do? A tinker can do better." With his imparted wisdom, he jumped off the building a disappeared into the bank.

I sure as hell wasn't going to wait for him to get back so he could bring me in. He appeared to be kind, but his bosses weren't going to let me just walk. So I ran to the edge of the roof before sinking into my speed. The world turned to a blur as I move faster then the eye could follow. The feeling was amazing, almost beyond description really. Nothing could make me upset or even bring down my mood as I felt the air blasting across my face.

Sadly, I reached one of my hidden entranced to the abandoned tinker tech sewers. I forced my "soul" out into the air in front of my and away from my body as I slowed down. My boots skidded across the ground as my motion was arrested. The door opened smoothly, and I was down in the unused sewers once again.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Crescent Rose was finally finished. I had to steal some rather larges pieces of metal from the boat graveyard to make the anvil, but now was the moment of truth. I placed all of the individual pieces into the frame I had already completed and tightened the necessary pieces. If this work, it would need to be opened for a long time.

The final plate was slotted with a heave and I was ready to test it out. I held the scythe at my side and retracted it to it's rifle form. As the heavier ends of the scythe collapsed, I held the bar on it's side to help brace the weight. I pulled the bar back to chamber the "bullet" that would normally have been there.

So far it was going well. I collapsed the sniper scythe into it's carrying form. It complied without any hesitation or problem. From there it went back to its full length once more. Then I did a basic twirl and a couple pulls and slashes with the weapon. It was heavier than the dummy scythe, but the balance was about the same.

A couple days of practice and I should have adjusted to the new and finally completed Crescent Rose. The magnetic carrier for her wasn't yet complete, but I was working on it. For now, the clasps and wooden frame would have to due. I pulled off my costume and removed the contact lenses I was wearing. Once they were out of my eyes I replaced my glasses.

It took five minutes to make it to my basement from my lair, using the abandoned sewers once again. I moved silently up to my bedroom, but was cut off by Dad. He was sitting in a kitchen chair outside my door with a rather cross look on his face. I didn't manage to duck back behind the wall in time.

"Taylor" His voice cut through my resolve like a knife through butter. He was so worried, I could see it in the wrinkles on his forehead and the way he clenched his hands.

"Hi Dad."

"It's rather late." Not now! I was so close to becoming a real hero!

"Yeah, I just had to go for a run." Crap, what a lame excuse. I knew he could see through my lies.

"Taylor, I know about the bullying."

Come on, how did he know I was Rub- wait what? This was about the bullying? Oh, that makes this incredibly less awkward.

"How did you find out?" I always tried to keep my problems away from Dad, but now he found out on his own.

"The school called to let me know that you've been skipping class. It wasn't hard to figure out that you weren't being treated well anymore. I THOUGHT you said that it wasn't happening anymore." Dad's voice was hard and didn't give me a chance to refute his claims. "Taylor, I need you to be honest, what is happening at that school that you resort to lying to keep it hidden?"

The way he saying that, it was odd. Did he think that I was part of a gang? I guess that made sense from his point of view, if it was slightly wrong.

"It's not a big issue, I just needed to get outside." I knew I was lying, and I knew he knew I was lying, but hopefully it was enough to get him to stop asking.

"You didn't answer the question."

"Just some mean gossip. I couldn't stand to be there anymore so I left for the day."

"Why don't you go to the Principle? They could put a stop to this nonsense." Dad's voice was slow and steady, carefully enunciating every word.

"I've tried before and nothing ever changes. I don't want to give them an excuse to escalate this anymore then it already has." I had to cringe when Dad pinched his nose and took several deep breath.

"How could they possibly escalate this any further? They shoved you in that GOD DAMNED LOCKER!" I flinched as he shouted. His face was a deep red and was practically growling.

It took several minutes of uncomfortable silence before Dad calmed down. "Why don't you tell me anything? How am I suppose to help you if you shut me out?"

I felt my heart wrench as he leaned forward and held his head between his hands. He was so tired and here I was, going off and playing hero. Ever since Mom, he's been distant but he always cared. Even now he was worrying about me for my safety and happiness. It hurt me so much to continue to lie to him, but I couldn't risk him forcing me off my path.

"They didn't do anything that bad, I just need to get away from it all."

"Look, I've done the required paperwork to allow you to take online courses. If you wont tell me what's going on at school, at least take this chance and leave." I couldn't keep the smile off my face. I wouldn't have to go back to school! I don't know how he did it but now I will so much more time in my workshop.

"Thank you!" I just barely held back from using my speed as I jumped at Dad to give him a hug. Of course, tinkering counts as studying. If anything I owed it to tinker in return for the Physics knowledge I gained. Yes, so it was completely fair for me to spend my time tinkering instead of studying.

Maybe I should have trusted my Dad a little bit more. He did do all of this by just knowing that I cut class the other day. I had to wonder why he chose to allow me to take online courses over sending me to a different school, but I think this worked out better.

"It's not just online though, you have to meet up with he other local student. I met one of them as he applied for a job at the docks. I think you'll like him."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The demonic gloves stared back at me. The tips of each extension their were scarlet crystals coming to wicked points. Inscribed on the back of fabric were glowing an eerie yellow in a runic script. I tore the glove from my bench and threw it in the pile of similar gloves that I rejected. This one was number fifty nine.

No matter how many times I attempt to make the gloves, I always end up created deadly gloves. Why the hell couldn't I make normal gloves. Instantly I felt my mind fill with details of claws, shock plates and other weapons I could place in gloves. I shook my head violently as the details tried to drag me deeper.

Why was it that I could only make dust weapons, when before I could make my boots and the rest of my costume. My boots filled my vision as I saw how the plates were layered to create harsh edges that condensed the force of my kicks into a concentrated area. Were they had opening to place crystals of dust for even more damage.

This time I pitch my leg to stir my mind from the tinker thoughts. So okay, my boots were actually weapons. Moving on, my long sleeved dress and corset had placed to hide or store weapons. That might have been enough, but why could I make the cloak? I can't even imagine how that might be a weapon.

Oh hey, my tinker thoughts were strangely silent. I pulled my cloak from my hanger and stared at the stitches. They weren't as uniform or strong as the other stitches in my costume. Maybe this was my own skills? Something independent from my tinker library? That was the only way that any of this made sense.

Well lets see, according to google it was pretty easy to create gloves. If I used my hand to cut out the cloth in the shape of my hand with a little bit of give, I could stitch the edges together to make it. Well, I took the cloth knife I had made. It was actually green enhanced to cut through the tougher cloth.

It was a little nerve wracking to pass the ridiculously dangerous blade around my hand. A single slip would completely remove a finger, or three. Thankfully I didn't even nick my left hand and I gathered the needle and dust enhanced thread. This time, instead of allowing the tinkering to take me over, I forced it down, drowning it under a sea of useless garbage.

It took twenty minutes to connect the edge of the two pieces of fabric. I actually had to stop four times as my fingers tried to part from my plans to create a weapon rather than normal gloves. The final product was a hand covering that was rather loose but at least it was completely functional. Honestly, the work was pretty substandard, but it would serve until I got better at sewing.

The alarm on the wall went off, signalling the end of my tinkering time. With a sigh, I left my hidden workshop and travelled all the way to the library. It was Friday, and all my tinkering was caught up to my expected schedule. Now I had to study as per my agreement with Dad. I still didn't think it was that easy, but he said all I had to do was study. Apparently he had it all taken care of.

I sat down at one of the computer consoles and logged into the online course website. Apparently superheroes need to study too, and I couldn't bring myself to complain. The history and language was tedious, but I found myself getting absorbed into the sciences like a fish to water. The only problem was that I had to actively prevent my tinker thoughts from using this information and dragging me down into another tinker trance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished the entirety of Worm! That said, this chapter didn't have as strong of an ending as I would have liked, but it will do for now. I forgot to say this last chapter, but this story is slightly AU because of RWBY related butterflies. Now, if you find anything that doesn't make sense, I would love to hear about it from you guys.


	3. Scatter 1-3

Remnants  
Scatter 1-3  
Balm of the Heart

Author's Note: 

I haven't explicitly said this, but Taylor is a tad shorter than cannon. About this chapter, I have to admit that I'm not particularly happy with how this chapter starts. The rest of the chapter has elements I think I could have done better, but It's the opening that feels the worst. If you have any ideas on how to improve it, feel free to leave a review.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Uber and Leet had been captured by Assault when I left the crime scene. Honestly, I was kinda surprised that he managed to catch them on his own. They got out of the holding cells, but at least they lost a lot of their tinkertech items. With Leet's limit of only making an item once, it was a significant advantage against him. It made an interesting dilemma, because I'm pretty cure the protectorate wants him to continue to tinker to provide them with ideas.

I felt my eyes drift close as my exhaustion try to win me over. I should not have stayed up all night. I loved my speed, and my tinker abilities were a huge part of me, but they can be so inconvenient at times. By the time I realized that it was morning, I had already completed the frame for another set of weapons.

Of course, this new weapon was completely ridiculous. It was a pair of two shotguns attached end to end to form a staff. Why did I want to make such a weird weapon? Well, supposedly things like this were normal for tinkers. I managed to keep up running as I rounded the final turn of my course. My legs were burning, but it wasn't an overly painful feeling. My endurance had vastly increase over the past couple of months.

I made it home to the smell of burnt toast. Dad probably tried to make french toast again. A quick check showed that the shower was free, so I rushed upstairs and got myself clean. Hot showers were perhaps the most sacred gift of the modern world. I left the bathroom feeling much better. Smoke was actually starting to rise from the kitchen, with all of it's terrible glory.

A skillet on the stove was empty, with a small pile of smoking bread sitting beside it. Dad was there, frantically smothering the burning toast. He went to get a piece of bread, only to stop and stare at me. He gave me a shaky smile, walking away from the pan with his hands up.

“I give up, care to show your old man how to make french toast kiddo?” 

“You don't even like french toast.” I replied, grabbing a slice of bread and coating it liberally with the egg mixture. The pan didn't have any butter on it, so I used a knife to put a dab in the pan and it melting with a satisfying sizzle. The bread followed soon after.

“But I know you love it.” Aw, Dad's been so happy since I agreed to do the online course instead of going back to school.

“How's work been?” His face contorted into a frown. Shit, I didn't want to upset him.

“I've had to cut off a couple of positions due to a lack of funding.”

“I'm sure things will look up.” I finished the first piece of french toast and began working on the second.

“It's always darkest before the dawn I suppose. How has the online course been?”

“Fine, history is kinda hard, but other than that I'm doing fine. A lot better than Winslow in any case.” Another pair of french toast left the pan and joined the first I made.

“I'm glad that it's working out for you. Have you managed to meet up with any of the other students yet?” Man, I wish he didn't ask that. He always so worried about me.

“Not yet, I've been busy with studying.” The final piece of french toast came off of the pan and I split them across two plates. Dad was frowning when I gave him his plate.

“I know you're shy, but you have to go and make some friends.”

“I will, eventually.” My response was weak, but what else could I have said? Thankfully, Dad's watch went off.

“Look, it's Saturday, so I'll probably be home early. Have a good day.” Dad took a piece of french toast with him, eating it on the way out of the house. I sighed as I finished my breakfast. I was actually planning on doing some regular patrols this evening, so it would be prudent to get all my equipment up to snuff. As I left my house, I took a deep breath of the chill air.

As I walked down to the boardwalk, with my note book out and was going over my most recent project. Unlike last night's fanatical work, this was something that my power didn't let me do. It was impossible to see the “soul” that powered my abilities, but all living things had it. Not sure how I knew that, but I knew it to be one hundred percent true.

I also knew that my “soul” was what protected me from the bone crushing forces of my speed. So theoretically I could create a device that would “unlock” the “souls” of others. If it worked, I could grant a brute ratings to other people. If I got it to work, it would change Endbringer fights forever. If it worked, it would give me a chance to learn more about my own powers. Sadly, I have no idea how such a thing could even work.

I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings as I walked into a little cafe, so it came as a surprise that I felt my shoulder bump into someone else. My glasses went flying off my face as my forehead smashed into a metal corner. Pain forced me to focus, and I barely managed to get my arms under me to catch my fall.

I heard a grunt behind me as someone, a guy I think, hit the ground. Thankfully, I was pretty much fine. The world span for a couple seconds as I got to my feet, but other than that I was fine. Well, I still couldn't see anything, everything reduced to a blur without my glasses. I should be beside the small table that had held a lamp last time I came here.

“Sorry, my bad. Are you okay?” The voice was gruff, and it had a subtle Korean(?) accent. The speaker was ruffly my height, I think.

“I can't see without my glasses.” I carefully bent over, sweeping my arms across the ground, hoping to find them.

“Found them.” He said, taking my hand in a soft grip and pressing my glasses into my palm. I took them and put them on before standing up. The boy was likely my age. He had the tawny skin and was wearing oriental themed clothing, though I couldn't tell from which country. The shirt was a longed sleeved black one, with horizontal ties instead of buttons, and his pants were plain black slacks.

“Thanks for the help, I'm Taylor.”

“Name's Monty, I am terribly sorry for bumping into you.” Monty handed me my notebook with a smile. What a nice smile.

“Don't apologize, I should have looked where I was going.” I had to avert my eyes as I felt my cheeks warm up. 

“Let's just say we were both at fault? It doesn't look like either of us are willing to accept an apology.”

“Okay.” Well, this is going to get awkward fast. What was I supposed to say in a situation like this? 'Oh hey I just tripped into you! Okay bye'.

“Well, have a nice day. I'm afraid that I have a meeting to get to.” His voice wasn't impatient, but it still sounded like he was in a hurry.

“You too.” I said weakly as Monty left. Good job Taylor, just put your foot in your mouth while you're at it. I retreated into the small little cafe. Honestly, there is a reason I'm trying to avoid talking to people.

I ordered my normal tea and hid back in the farthest corner from the door. Flipping to my current page, I began to sketch out the next attempt at my current problem. While to anyone else, the script would look like magical symbols from a typical book or TV show, the diagrams were cleverly ciphered. Small things meant a completely different dust alignment matrix, which would propagate into a skewed energy attribution. Plus, it was kinda fun to pretend I was just a normal artist.

Sometimes, I wonder if it's like this for all tinkers. Does their supernatural grasp of technology leave gaps that taunt them with their inability to complete them? Do they spend entire days wondering if small angular adjustments could create the effect they wanted? Was their entire lives filled with ceaseless discovery as the very gift they were blessed with drove us to understand more?

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It was night when I finally managed to set up the next trial. For anyone else, the chalk circles and suspended crystal would give off a weird feel, I'm sure. Perhaps they would think of occult rumours, or maybe those stories with magic that are still popular. On the other hand, I understood what was going on with these measured angles and induced energy levels.

Dust, from what I managed to discover, couldn't do much of anything in it's base state. Early on I had discovered how to align them by growing them near energy sources. From there basic experiments showed how to invert a crystal, causing them to absorb their traditional energy to produce the growth of new crystals. Kinda like a seed.

On it's own, perhaps that would make them powerful tools for me to use in my heroic escapades. However, it was the limitless combinations that consumed my curiosity. Questions filled my mind whenever it wandered. Could dust align to a negative energy value? Dozens of test prove the concept possible, if too unstable for practical uses.

The theory, as of now at least, was that dust operated on a frequency of resonance that allowed separate crystal instances affect “neutral” dust crystals. Trial one-oh-five, Fuck! That was three days worth of dust! Why was I using the cheap rope? Uh, where was I? Oh yes, trial one oh five was based around introducing the third dimension into these alignment trials. It was a pain to get the strings to hand just right, but it should be worth it. It was working, as the white crystal gained a sickly yellow shade at it's very edges.

Based on the size of the crystal, the process would finished by tomorrow. My hands jotted down a few quick notes on my lab book. It was the most tedious part of experimenting with my power, but it helped me keep my thoughts organized and prevented me from going too far off topic. Not that it prevent be from silently rejoicing when I was able to slot the book back into it's proper resting spot.

The broom I liberated from the run down building three blocks over was a little bit thread bare, but it was good enough to help collect the chucks of dusts that had shattered when the estra-magus cluster lost its anchor and fell out of it's cradle. Thankfully, it didn't ruin the entire experiment. The pale red crystal would be removed and probably powdered into charges for ammo.

With a sigh, I replaced the broom into my lab's closet. The clock on the wall showed that it was almost three in the morning. Ah, not wonder I was so tired. Well, I probably had time to sneak in a quick run before I had to head home. I was in my uniform anyway, and with Crescent Rose I was even safer than last week. It would give me time to think anyway.

My hold on my soul was getting more powerful recently. The subject held most of my thoughts recently, yet it was hard to quantify exactly What was changing with it. It was only because my soul had a shimmering red glow now that I even noticed it. Souls had an ethereal feel to them, and English lacked a word to describe how mine was changing. I can't say it was getting more powerful, or that it was expanding. However, those statements were the closest to what it felt like.

Even now, my speed was pulling less on my soul. My foot landed on a shingled roof and a pulse of energy ran down my leg and no doubt causing the signature red glow as the damage was absorbed? Perhaps reflected was a better word to use. That caused more significant damage, damage is the wrong word, to my soul.

Of course, as I pushed off to jump to the next roof my speed gently grasped me as I was whisked to the top of the broken ship. Even as the speed reluctantly let me go, my rose petals continued to drape down my cloak. Landing was something of an art, as my cloak was carried just a touch faster than me. 

My right foot held me on the very edge of the mast as my left heel was at the centre. I smiled slightly as my cloak fluttered across my shoulders and into the air. The wind gently swirling my rose petals was all so inviting. From up here, Brockton Bay really was beautiful. Gang signs and rampant crime didn't reach so far up. The only thing remaining was the warm feeling of home.

Adrenaline surged through me as the enticing thought of jumping flooded my brain. My smile grew and twisted into a smirk as I pushed gently off the mast. I twisted my speed around me, and was delighted to find the ground approaching me at even faster speeds. Crescent Rose found her way into my hands as I let the wind unfold her into her scythe form. Faster than most could see, I spun her around my body and slammed her into the mast beside me.

The blade was strong enough that rather than break, it pulled me into a spin around the mast. I didn't let up with my speed even as my motion transferred mostly into horizontal movement. When I was close to the ground, I snapped a foot forward and, with the help of my soul, bounced of it and soared into the air. My giggles were almost uncontrollable after that.

As I reached the peak of my journey, Crescent Rose was folding and latched onto my back. With her out of the way, I was free to contort my body into a spin. This time, I couldn't tell who was more reluctant to let go of the other, my speed or I. Either way, I landed softly on one of the roads near the docks.

With a deep breath, I jumped up onto the flat roof of a nearby office building. Surprisingly, Dad's office was fairly high up for a run down city. Four stories tall, the office boasted a hidden lounge on the top. Dad told me once that before the Endbringers, they were planning on converting the small collection of couches into a proper break room, but without any money there was nothing they could do.

From here, the plan was to do a quick circuit around the bay to blow of steam. Of course, once I saw the smoke coming from a nearby apartment building there was no way I could abandon them. Barely a second went by before I was there, helping evacuate the people still inside. Since I was coming in from the roof, it made sense to start with the pent house apartment.

The trouble began when I reached the door to the stairs. It was locked and a little bit to sturdy to beat down with my lanky frame. Fuck it, not like the rest of the building would survive the fire. Crescent Rose came out and made short work of the steel door. Even three inches of the stuff was no match for my beauty. Done with her, I folding Crescent Rose up and jogged down the stairs. 

I paused when the door for the penthouse came into sight. The handle was obliterated with chucks of it as far as the stairwell. With the tight space, I resorted to pulling out the Stormflowers and slowly pushing the doorway open. Inside there was a woman in a metallic gas mask and yellow tinted goggles.

She was crouched over a large, well built Asian man with some sort of mechanical device attached at his neck with three cylinders attached, one of which was burnt black and the other two had a series of glowing yellow LED lights. His body was less burnt that I imagine he should have been. While most of his shirt had been reduced to ash, his skin was only an unhealthy pink.

The woman's head shot up, but with the Stormflowers already up and pointed in her direction, it was trivial to pot three shots into her chest. The bursts of electricity was probably safe, unless she had a heart condition. I bent down and picked up the barely burnt man and began to carry/drag him up to the roof of the building.

Once I was up there, I had the space to use my speed to drop the both of us down to street level. The people surrounding the building were just as surprised as I when I appeared there carrying the man. Why were a bunch of ABB guys surrounding a random apartment? The cape in the building wasn't one of theirs, so it wasn't them attacking the building.

I left quickly afterwards, going to pick up the cape I left behind in the still burning room. This time I made sure to pull my face covering closer so that no trace amounts of smoke could get in my lungs. The journey took a couple of seconds, and I arrived to see the woman still passed out. I felt a pulse in her neck, so I picked her up and once again left to deposit her outside.

I was outside again, and was treated to the comical sight of three men trying to lift the barely guy to his feet. From the looks of it, the man was aware and had a modicum of control of himself. Once the guy supported his left side buckled, I left. I don't know why the ABB were helping a random Asian guy, but there could be more people inside that needed saving. Besides, the ABB were an exclusively Asian gang that acted as foil to the Empire 88's pro-white agenda, so it was probably a pride thing.

Not surprising, but I found another couple in the building, this time on the second floor. At least these two were safe, if trapped inside their apartment by burning debris. The blades on my Stormflowers made short work of it, and another saved couple were free of the building. This continued on for a good couple of minutes before I had checked every room I could find.

This time, when I got outside none of the gang members were still around. In fact, many people who I had save from the fire weren't here anymore. Considering that many of them were Asian and that the ABB were known for helping Asians, I was willing to let it go. Picking up the strange tinker, I jumped onto a nearby roof and speed off into the night. 

For some reason, the PRT night shift was surprisingly nonchalant about the whole process. I only had to give the briefest report on what happened and they took it over from there. A pair of industrial hand cuff were used to restrain the woman and then they escorted her and let me leave without much more that a brief inquiry for injuries.

 

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It was only a couple of days until I got my first result back from the online courses. Much like I expected, I was only barely passing in English and history. If it wasn't for my phenomenal grades in Science and Math, I probably would have failed out of the program. Then again, marks that low would make it look like I'm avoiding work to just do drugs or something.

I queued the page up for printing and took a moment to check out PHO. Perhaps it was a bad habit to always be checking the message boards about myself and other similar heroes, but my curiosity wouldn't let me stop. So many people where interested in me now!

I could hardly believe it, all I had done was fight with Uber and Leet twice and now there was a whole thread dedicated to me. Suddenly everything wasn't just doing a little bit of good here and there. People knew me, or at least knew of me, and held me up as a hero. Even after fighting villains, it felt weird to be so... popular is the best word I can think of.

My stomach did little flip flops every time I returned to the forum dedicated to me. So many people were saying nice things about me now. The posts had slowed down, but right after that fire it was flooded with report of me saving people. It was kinda neat to see how fast people can propagate information when they actually care.

I logged off and left the terminal. Dad would be happy to see my grades reaching such a phenomenal height. It just goes to show that I could have gone to Acadia if the trio hadn't been sabotaging my work. N-not that they mattered anymore. I was living my own life now.

I grabbed the print off and paid for the page before leaving to head towards home. Normally, I would spend some time tinkering down in my secret lair. Huh, that makes it sound evil when I think of it like that. Anyway, today I felt that just relaxing and reading a good book before supper. The alignment for my newest batch of dust wouldn't be done until tomorrow anyway.

It was 3:00 right now, and Dad sometimes got home as early as 5:00.So, I was only loosing like two hours anyway. The air was quick fresh and had a nice breeze going as I took a leisurely stroll to the bus station. It was early spring and the light snow we got this year hadn't yet thawed out completely. In a way, the subtle patterns of grass pocking through the snow had an artistic charm to them.

Honestly, I wasn't sure how long I was just admiring the scenery before the bus came to pick me up. Nature was something that no one seemed to care for anymore. Even as I sat down, my eyes kept drifting to the window. A lead weight settled in my stomach as I caught sight of Sophia a couple of seats ahead of me.

From her demeanour, I don't think she recognized me. Hopefully my luck would hold out and let me slip away from her. Maybe if I time it right I can slip just by her without looking to awkward or attracting to much attention. Sophia's attention seemed to be focused on her phone for some reason, but at least she wasn't coming for me.

My nerves were shot by the third stop. It was hard to keep from jumping out the window every time her attention drifted in my direction. She had only looked directly at me once, but thankfully her phone went off and she quickly looked at it. I could hear my heart frantically beating in my ears as the world outside seemed to fade away.

On the fourth stop, my heart stopped when I saw Emma of all people get on. The phantom sensation got worse as she slowly took stock of the bus, presumably looking for Sophia. I carefully kept my face passive as I stared out the window. It was for nought, as I saw Emma sit down next to Sophia and point directly towards me.

The smirk that grew on Sophia's face was full of self righteous satisfaction and sadistic anticipation. All that happened in my life, from Mom's death to my fights with Uber and Leet, and I've never felt as unsettled as that twisted mockery of a grin made me feel now. Throughout my body I felt a deadly chill flood through my blood and a sudden clarity invaded my mind.

Sophia wasn't just a bully that enjoyed the fleet moments of superiority. She was a monster. The worst kind of person, the cancerous growth of humanity. A twisted killer, or at least she would become one. I have no idea why, but this sadistic thing was hell bent on hunting me down. There is nothing I would prefer that a swift run away from this creature.

The next stop was blissfully soon, and I could barely contain my need to flee as I quickly got off the bust and lightly jogged down the street. This wasn't the best neighbourhood, but it might play in my favour if it made Sophia second guess her pursuit. The sound of my feet hitting against the cement gave me a moment's peace.

As Taylor, I had never been in this part of town. Dad considered it too dangerous of a young woman to find herself alone in, and for the most part I tended to agree with him. What he didn't know, was that I wasn't just Taylor. I was equally Ruby Rose. She knew these roads and alleys like the back of her hand from nearly constant running. 

It was only because of this history and experience that I knew one of the best shortcut's in the city, aside from the abandoned tinkertech sewers. I turned on a dime and did a couple short hops on top of a stack of bins until I reached the bottom of the fire escape and pulled myself up. As my hands swiftly pulled myself up to the first landing, I saw Sophia belt to the opening of the alley not even twenty feet off. 

That twisted grin was still there as I jumped into the second floor's apartment window. This particular tenement was ruined and structurally unsafe, but with no one willing to spend money it was empty save for the homeless as I ran through to the open window on the other end of the building. My feet griped into the window sill as I hooked my hands into loose rebar and used it to swing my body.

My feet landed on the dilapidated roof of the abandoned shop and I let go of the window to let myself slide down the steep incline. The roof had a hole about halfway down that dropped me a floor and a half directly into the basement of the building. I landed in a roll and scampered up to the window and the very top of the eastern wall.

The window had been broken not even a week ago when I had mistimed a jump and crashed into the ground. Thankfully it let me exit through the backyard of this building and into the small wooded park. Behind me I could year a breathy curse as Sophia hit something rather hard. The woods were rather sparse and easy to run through, but it had one feature that made it particular good as a shortcut.

Part of the fence here was cut open and gave me access to the train yards. While it wasn't formally a part of a gangs territory, it was insanely risky for me to be running through them. Thankfully I only need to get to the third set of tracks. As I began to breath heavier, I risked a look behind me. Sophia was only now getting out of the basement with a frustrated look on her face.

The third set of tracks were particularly ruined because of a fight between a couple of capes years ago. It left a particularly deep gash in the ground that intersected with the regular sewers. My shoes skidded as I jumped down and continued to run with energy provided by my soul. While the smell was god awful here, it was a twisting maze that had been added to patchwork over that past twenty years.

That is, it was a maze of interconnected pipes that meshed old and traditional systems, with newer, tinkertech augments that were the compromise for the loss of the completely tinkertech sewer. It took several exhausting minutes, but I think I've completely lost Sophia. Taking a brief minute, I allowed myself to use my soul to get my breath back.

Afterwards, it was a sedate pace as I travelled towards the manhole closest to home. Not twenty minutes passed and I was home and relaxing with a good book and a mug of tea. I just couldn't keep my mind off of that look I saw on Sophia's face. Not that it stopped me from trying.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The tea at the small cafe, 'Gas Lamp Lounge', was quite good. I only wished I could afford to come more often. After the chaotic run yesterday, the calm atmosphere was welcome. I sighed as I relaxed into my seat and focused on my novel. It's been a long time since I really had a chance to just relax, and I was enjoying it immensely.

In particular, I was reading Mistborn: The Final Empire and enjoy the rather unique take on magic. The characters weren't the best I've read, but not bad either. The inclusion of duelling canes actually gave me an idea for a cane that shot explosives. Really, that idea wasn't the most practical, but it was easier to pass off as a normal item.

I took a deep drink of the still hot tea and enjoyed the aftertaste it left. Yes, the tea here was of a higher quality than most other cafes in Brockton Bay. Then again, it was Brockton Bay, so that might not be a fair comparison. The door gave a jingle as another person entered the cafe. I looked up briefly and saw Monty enter the cafe.

He was wearing more modern clothing, a pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt with some Asian script on it. I would assume Chinese, but for all I know it could be Korean. Koreans used a logographic alphabet, right? Honestly I have no idea. Either way, it was a nice look. Logographic icons look kinda neat .

I turned back to my book. Idly I wondered why Logographic letters weren't used in English. It was a different system to the normal alphabet, but it feels like attaching direct meaning to symbols would be a more direct evolution of a written language. Of course, I didn't actually know, but it was a curiosity.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” I was pulled from my thoughts as Monty walked to the small table I was sitting at. He had a small smile and was carrying a drink and a pair of muffins. Blood tried to rush upwards to my cheeks, but I brutally fought my blush down.

“Yeah, sure. Are you okay from the other day?” I replied. He sat down across from me and gave me another smile.

“I was going to ask you the same thing. Muffin?” He held one of the muffins towards me.

“No, I couldn't. Thanks” I hesitantly smiled back.

“Don't worry about it, I just want to make up for running into the other day.” While he didn't make the offer again, he left the muffin in front of me. 

“I thought we agreed that it was both of our fault.” 

“We did, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't make amends.”I was going to reply, when a terribly loud screech echoed around the bay. My throat became tight and dry as I recognized the sound.

It was the Endbringer alarm.


	4. Scatter 1-4

Remnants

Scatter 1-4  
Siege

Author's Note: The main reason I had to put this here is because of the time line that Wildbow set up with the Endbringer attacks.

So, looking back on what I wrote, I'm not completely satisfied with it. Not sure why but it feels kinda off? It might be due to a rising set of standards that I'm trying to hold myself too, but this isn't as good as I would like. It feels just a touch too much of telling instead of showing, but I can't point to any given line as my example.

On another note, I've recently been addicted to the works of Brandon Sanderson, a IRL author. All his works a single universe known as the 'Cosmere' and it has me hooked like a merchant on crack. Because of my most recent addiction, I expect to be side tracked on at least four or five stories featuring Cosmere features(even if only Obliquely). So in addition to reviewing this chapter's level of quality and it's story elements, can I gauge the interest in a Cosmere story too? I might do a survey on my profile in the new year, but would the readers of this story be upset if I split my efforts between this and a new Cosmere story?

In either case, Merry Christmas. Hope you enjoy this chapter.  
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The alarms were loud enough to reach even to my secret lair. My hands were busy, darting here and there, picking up ammo and sorting them into proper magazines to load in my weapons. I had my uniform on already and including the coloured contacts placed on my eyes. It was the ammo that was most cumbersome, but I don't think I'll have a chance to come back and retrieve more ammo should I run out.

Rank 12 Brute rounds, Flare rounds, Explosive rounds, Supersonic rounds(untested of course), Gust Rounds, Incendiary Rounds and Decay rounds were all slotted on my second belt by the magazine. If I had the foresight, some of them might have been the right calibre for my Stormflowers. As it stood, the only Stormflower rounds I had were Brute 6 rounds and some Flare rounds.

Of course, my main belt held duplicate ammo and some of the raw crystals that I liked using as grenades. Along side those, I had taken some bandages and painkillers. Not the most impressive medical equipment, but it was all I could scrounge up. Soon, my lab was almost entirely ransacked for all of it's usable equipment. I had to leave behind the half finished shotgun staff combo weapon.

The only place that I could think to show up to was the floating base that the Protectorate used as a head quarter for their daily operations. My feet were hitting the ground with a satisfying tap tap tap sound as I speed towards the access point closest to the bay. As the exit approached I slid across the ground, using my legs to absorb most of the speed.

My cloak was flapping as I rocketed out of the small opening formed from a crater that had been left from one of Lung's earliest rampages. As soon as I felt my upwards velocity falter, I snapped Crescent Rose in her rifle form and use a pair of shots to propel myself in the right direction. Even as she was locked into her carrier, my speed surged forwards and pulled me to the most obvious helipad on the flying oil platform.

Like always, the speed was intoxicating. However, it wasn't a gentle grasp anymore. The speed wasn't a cradle that protected me. It was a burning fire that raced through me. My body didn't protest the pain, in fact, it was welcoming it in a way. Just as it tightened around my body, everything seemed to be slower. Not much slower, certainly not slow enough for me to fully act as if I was travelling at normal speeds. Just enough to give me the edge I needed to know where I was going.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw Glory Girl flying towards a much lower opening in the base. Changing direction in mid air should be impossible, but that didn't stop my speed from shifting to land me on the much smaller patio. The speed was snatched from my body just as I approached the floor. Just like that, I began to move at a snails pace. Relatively.

As I landed, my soul flared around my legs as I absorbed the impact. My attention switched to the other in the area as soon as I was on solid ground again. Glory Girl was at the door and was partially turned to look at me. She soon gave a short wave and walked inside. Without anyone else to guide me, I blindly followed her into the building.

The large hall we entered was buzzing with activity. Uber and Leet were hanging over something that Armsmaster was working on, with both Kid Win and, apparently, one of Dragon's suit a short distance away. The mechsuit was cracked open and Kid Win seemed to be installing something inside. On the other side of the room, their was a couple of people direct traffic and preparing for the Endbringer. Most notably was Miss Militia and the waves of colourfully dressed capes she was directing to other rooms.

I walked up to her and waited for a couple of seconds while she talked to another group of people, "Head down that hallway and third door on the left will have the mobilization plans on a map." She turned to me and I took that as an invitation to introduce myself.

"Ruby Rose, here to help with the Endbringer."

"Can you take other with you while travelling at high speeds?" her face as mostly covered by her scarf, but her eyes betrayed her exhaustion. She had a clipboard she was looking at, and consulted it as I responded.

"Yes, I can. What should I do?" It was strictly true, but who knew how difficult it would take to carry another person?

"We need you to take Panacea to the established field hospital. The exact location will be on the map in the room three doors down that hallway." Her hand pointed down another hallway that was about ten feet across. I gave her a nod and proceeded down to where she mentioned.

The room was white and had a map on the far wall and bags with what I assume is medical supplies. The map had an area north of the city outlined, with all of the Endbringer shelters represented with a red dot at their entrances. I made sure to memorize the map, before picking up a single bag. If I was running Panacea out to the field hospital, might as well take some equipment with me.

"Excuse me? Are you here to bring me to the field hospital?" I heard a tired voice ask from behind me. When I turned around I saw a young woman wearing a white robe with a red cross on it. Panacea, the universal cure. She was able to heal any damage short of brain injuries. It wouldn't be inaccurate to call her just as important to the world as Legend or Alexandria.

"Yup, Ruby Rose, at your service." I made sure to strap the bag I picked up tightly. After making sure the bag wouldn't come off I turned and faced Panacea. "Ready to go? It's probably not going to be comfortable."

"Okay, sure." Panacea led me to another balcony, separate from the one I arrive on.

"You okay? You seem out of it." Panacea shook her head a little as I spoke and her eyes took a moment to focus on me.

"Just tired. So, how is this going to work?"

"I was planning on just carrying you piggy back, you okay with that?" I bent down a little to make it easier for her.

"Sure. Thanks for the help." Her grip on my back wasn't particularly strong, so I made sure to grab her legs before going.

"Why are you wearing so much cloth? Doesn't it get in the way?"

"It's quite light." I bent my knees and ran off the edge of the building. My speed grasped me tightly as I was swept towards a high rise building downtown. My landing wasn't as solid as normal, but I was carrying another person. Oddly, my speed didn't drain my soul any more than it normally does. Not that it made it any easier to maintain my balance with Panacea on my back.

"What was that?" Panacea squeaked out as her arms tighten around me.

"Just how I travel. You okay?" She seemed rather worried.

"It felt unsettling." Her body gave a small shudder. "Let's just get this over with."

Soundlessly, I beckoned my speed once more as I gave a small jump. Panacea's shiver seemed to grow more intense as my speed carried us to the other side of the bay. Odd, that my speed would have such an intense reaction. Either way, I only had to make another jump and we had arrived. Velocity, in all of his misty nature, zipped past us as he used his insubstantial form to accelerate towards the Protectorate HQ. The moment I forced my speed back, Panacea practically jumped off my back and onto solid ground. I gave her a small smile and left the medical supplies with the respectable pile already here.

"Take care. Hopefully I'll see you when this is all over." Oh, wow that sounded a lot more grim then I intended. Thankfully she didn't seem to notice or care about my comment. I turned around and gave a short run up before letting go on the restraints on my speed. Before I was hurried from ground and into the air, I managed to hear a final sentence from Panacea.

"Good luck."  
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When I next arrive at the Protectorate, it was vastly more organized. A veritable army of capes were in the main atrium with a raised platform. From the doorway, it looks like it was mostly heroes with the only villainous capes being those local to the Bay. On the far wall, a map of the Bay was shown with every other street highlighted one colour or another.

Hopefully Dad got to a shelter okay. He should have, he works just a couple of minutes away from one. My attention was pulled from the map when Legend flew onto the stage from outside. He landed softly and turned to the gathered parahumans. His face was grim, but not fearful. I could see the others stand up straighter as they saw Legend.

"Thank you all for coming. As many of you are already aware of, the Simurgh was sighted and is making swift progress towards Brockton Bay. However, thanks to the vigilant work of Dragon and Armsmaster, we've had the warning to get everyone brought in quickly. Anyone with teleportation, or similar mass transport abilities, we'll have you help evacuate as many people as possible. Tinkers, as normal you will be located outside of the Simurgh's largest documented range." I couldn't even help!? I know that the Simurgh could access my tinkertech if I got in range, but what else was I supposed to do?

"We will have Thinker support on the ground and helping us to orchestrate our ranged support. The areas on the map are where we expect the Simurgh to idle and construct her machine are shown in red. I have full confidence in all of you gathered, but don't let yourself get careless. By the end of today one in five of you will be dead or insane." A chill shot down my back. One in five dead?

"Be careful, and follow the instructions Dragon will relay to you. Take one of her communications bracelets before leaving. The left most button will transmit a message to the buffer server. The right button will transfer you to and from the search and rescue channel. In the event of a vitally important message, press both buttons simultaneously and it will be immediately heard by Dragon, and myself so that we can react appropriately. I trust that you will understand and respect the importance of this system."

"Healers and first aid staff, the medical tent is outlined in green on the map. Fliers are going to keep people rotated out of the scream area. Everyone else, be careful and hinder the Simurgh while you are in the scream zone. Remember after twenty minutes inside the scream, you will be reminding to leave before it can manipulate you. Good luck."

Irrelevant to the lack of any meaningful way to aid them, I memorized the location on the map and began to make my way out of the hall. I belatedly remembered to grab a communicator on my way out. I tightened my belts and made it out to the large helipad I had seen on my way here. The base itself was moving out of the way, but it wasn't going to move fast enough to get completely out of the way. The Simurgh was only twelve minutes out.

I saw several fliers filter out of the large hanger to the left and gave a bitter smile. How many of them would have a chance to help out in this fight? How many would die because I happened to be a Tinker and unable to help them? My thoughts were in a dark place, and no matter how much I shook my head they refused to leave me.

A couple of deep breaths and I was ready to go. I stepped off the pad and fell straight down towards the water. My speed snapped out of my body and swung me off towards the far end of the city. The usual feeling of contentment and satisfaction was enough to get me focused on the task at hand. I almost bounced off of a small building, sending me flying off into the air as I travelled off towards the edge of the city.

This time the landing was much smother, as I used my soul to absorb the damage that would have been done to my legs. I shoved my speed down and stood up straight. While I wasn't the first person to arrive, the area was still pretty empty. The work benches were several metres long and had dozens of tools I've never even seen before.

Kid Win and Armsmaster had already arrived and were working together some project. Oddly, I didn't see Leet here. I mean, he could have just left the city, but I kinda assumed he would be here to help. A pair of giant mechsuits were stationed here and one was ripped open and had several pieces removed.

I turned and looked out at the horizon, staring until I could just make out the white thing that must be the Simurgh. It was approaching at a constant pace, seemingly uncaring for the force arrayed against it. If I had to guess, I'd say that it was about ten minutes out, give or take. I turned back to the tables with the tools and began to sort through what we had available.

Even if I couldn't get close enough to physically help, I would be damned before I would let myself do nothing on the sidelines. A quick glance showed that the first giant mechanical suits had some redundant components, but without knowing the technology behind it, I was a little hesitant to begin to work on it. Instead I pulled Kid Win's hoverboard from behind him and cracked it open.

The components inside were physically separated by their apparent function. I snagged some wire snips and cut out the power generator. It was held in with six small screws, and it took a good twenty seconds to find the right sized bit to remove them. Once I had freed the compact slab, I began to take apart the case that held the unit.

It was a mess of wires and components twisted into a nightmarish web. I deftly traced the important wires and loosened them so that they could be threaded out of the case. I left the exposed generator out as I moved on into the other components. One pair of spherical pieces looked like they were responsible for providing lift to the board, so I pried them out.

My left most pouch had some solid kinetic dust, so I pulled a couple of those crystals out. They weren't the most useful, but the directional force it could provide would be essential to allow the hoverboard to operate. They formed the base of the rectangles that would be the new propulsion method. Some green gale dust found it's way into the constructed pair soon enough, giving the directional movement that would also double as the firing mechanism to the projectile launchers.

The final touch, a pair of strings infused with yellow electric dust woven into the dense dust block before locking it all together with some plexiglass I "borrowed" from one of the tables. I left the new units off to the side as I began to cut away most of the remaining components inside the hoverboard. I tried to be careful, but ultimately everything was getting replaced by my new components so I wasn't that careful.

The barrel and loading mechanism was cobbled together with crude parts, mostly because anything else would require a complete redesign of the base chassis and I didn't have the heart to completely invalidate Kid Win's previous work. The two dust blocks had to be partially taken apart so that the barrel would fit between the key projectile accelerators, leaving me with less room to try and work in some folding mechanisms. Not really a loss, but it did leave the design with some spacial inefficiencies.

Kid Win's generator module was placed inside a modified version of it's initial case so that it had the room to connect the metallic wires with my dust based variant. The new case would be easily fashioned from the scrap components I had already removed with some of the scrap metals on the furthest table. It took be a couple of moments to locate the right alloys and some shaping tools.

When I returned to the hoverboard, Kid Win had left Armsmaster's side was was going over the changes I had made. For a moment I was worried I had upset him, but his shoulders weren't squared. If anything, he looked more curious than anything. I walked over to his side of the table and he looked up from the board.

"How does this even work? I can't make heads or tails of it." His voice was confused and he had an eyebrow raised. Kid Win had traced out the wires on a sheet of scrap paper beside the board, leaving a lot of space empty for the components I had added or altered.

"I replaced most of the internal components with a specialized crystal. They do most of the work your old pieces did." I layered the pieces I had taken into an approximation of the new frame, albeit two dimensional. Kid Win helped to lift the generator component when I wordlessly motioned to it, so I begun to fit and rivet the piece in place.

"Interesting. What about surge protection? Many villainous tinkers have the ability to mess with tech. I had to get Armsmaster to add in some of his safeties into my board." Kid Win gestured to a bunch of the components I had removed, "Without those, my board was sensitive to EMP weapons and the like."

"They don't need the redundancies. Can you hold this piece in place." My hand reached out for the point welder as I connected a support piece to the bottom of the board. A couple quick welds and the back of the generator was well and fully supported.

"Shouldn't you use screws in case you need to repair this?" Kid Win's fingers twitched towards one of the pieces on the table, a movement I was intimately aware of. After all, I did the same thing when my power acting up, pushing ideas into by head. Wordlessly, I handed Kid the welder. He practically jumped forward to grab it.

It was interesting to see Kid work on the board. He was bolting several of the generators components directly to the base, using the supports I built up to manage the dust wires I had laid down inside the core of the piece. In fact, I'm pretty sure he made it easier for me to finish off the project, now that the wires all passed through the top, I could easily lace in a couple of the modules I wanted to add.

I stepped around Kid and began to set up the mechanical levers that would run the projectile thrower. They wound up right where the heels would go while he piloted the hoverboard. Next was some form of lighting. Thankfully, I didn't need to bother with the wires, as they were already near the front. It just took a simple switch and a pair of flare crystals and the board had headlights.

"What do those crystals do?" Kid was off to the side, updating the diagram he had drawn out before.

"They emit light. For now, it will just turn them on and off." I reached out and took the top of the board and began to cut out holes for the new switches with one of the Stormflowers. Kid stepped up to my side to offer me a tape measure, only to rescind his offer when I cut without measurement.

"Let me handle putting the cover on, I'll need to know how to take it apart to maintain it."

"You wont have to maintain most of it, just your generator and maybe oil the hinges. The rest of it can run for years without any maintenance." Either way, I did grudgingly hand him the plate. It wasn't my best working, not even a quarter as good as my Crescent Rose, but my baby was pretty great like that.

"Really? That must be convenient." Kid sounded wistful as he took over on the piece. I sent a quick look at the Simurgh in the distance. I flinched as I saw it significantly closer than it was before. What surprised me the most was the small number of tinkers that had joined us while I was working on Kid's hoverboard. Either way, I saw Armsmaster in the guts of one of the two mechsuits. The other was still inert, although it does look significantly more complete. Nothing better to do, I walked over to Armsmaster.

The tall man didn't react as I walked up, so I took that as an invitation to take a look at what he was working on. The suit itself didn't seem to have a lot of room for a pilot, but then again, not everyone was as freakishly tall as me. He was fiddling with some form of launcher, judging by it's design. Of course, it seemed to function mainly off of electromagnetic fields, well outside my area of focus.

"Hey, pass the soldering set?" I jumped as Armsmaster suddenly spoke, but used my speed to grab that tool from the table and get back in a blink.

"Here." This time, it was Armsmaster's turn to jump as I was suddenly behind him once again. He silently took it from me and began to attack some cables to the circuit board on the projectile launcher. I watched him work for a couple of minutes trying to see where he was implementing the new board. It didn't look like it was a part of the launcher itself.

"That was quick." Well, that was as subtle as a bull in a china shop. Sudden too, but I imagine that I sound a lot like that at times too.

"I'm fast. What are you adding?" I tilted my head to the side as I tried to get a better look at the pieces inside the mechsuit.

"An EMP generator. It got destroyed in the Simurgh fight three months ago, and we didn't expect to need it so soon." Armsmaster bolted the board he had been working on to the back of the mechsuit. The large barrel of the generator was slid up a sheath in the spinal region, the rest of the device attached in the centre of mass.

"Don't the Endbringers rotate? Shouldn't it be Leviathan or Behemoth?" I will admit that until I recovered from the locker, I hadn't really been paying attention to the attacks. I felt a stab of guilt that I hadn't even remembered the Endbringers until now.

"Yes." Armsmaster didn't elaborate any more. He instead reached even farther inside the mechsuit and began to attach the main body of the EMP device to it. I was going to ask for elaboration, when the armband on my arm crackled to life.

"Simurgh entering contact range. Estimated time until scream, hundred and twenty seconds." A woman's voice cracked out of everyone's armband. "Ranged combatants, begin engagement."

My hand drifted towards Crescent Rose, but with the Simurgh's telekinesis, she would be impotent. Instead, I let my eyes flit over the gathered tinkers. The dozen of us had about four major projects that I could pick out. Of them, I couldn't see a single item that I would be able to help with.

The Simurgh's biggest threat was her scream and whatever it tries to make. While I can't stop the scream, I could probably do something to stop it from activating it's device. But what? Just dust ammo wont actually do anything, because telekinesis. What else was in my reach. I could try to make a weapon, but what kind of weapon could destroy the Simurgh's device without backfiring?

I could make an aircraft, but there was no time to grow the quantities of dust it would take. Not to mention that the ones off the top my head wouldn't have the offensive capabilities required to make it effective. Artificial humans require far too much time and training to be effective. The Beacon Project is huge, but it would have been useful to have. If only I had build it sooner. That's what it came down to. Time

How much time did I waste studying or learning history or language when I could have been preparing for these monsters? What kind of damage could I have stopped if I had only been devoted to my tinkering? How many lives could a single dustship save? Who had I doomed by not taking my powers seriously?

Far too many.


	5. Chapter 5

Remnants  
Scatter 1-5  
Grimm

Author's Note:Characters can be wrong. I need more cape names for people who died during the Endbringer attack, so if any of my readers want to give me a name to use, that would be great.

Also, I want to get some feedback on what went well in this chapter and where I could improve. In that vein, I have a new update cycle. I write the raw chapter -> Beta -> Review -> Spacebattles -> Final Review -> FanFiction.net. Hopefully someone on spacebattles is going to yell at me so I can fix the mistakes I likely made.

Thanks to xDelta-Ha-chanx on Fanfiction for being my first beta. 

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The attack was deceitfully simple. The blasts of energy and projectiles bounced off of the nebulae of debris and buildings as the titan glided into downtown Brockton Bay. Anyone without knowledge of it's scream would be hopeful. However, I did know. Every failed attack, every missed laser cost someone precious time in the scream zone.

Around me, the half dozen tinkers were working on some weapon or another that could help. For all the good that will accomplish. My imagination threw up an image of them as toddlers, running around and claiming to be 'halping' the fight. It didn't make me laugh.

I was standing a fair distance off and was staring down Crescent Rose's scope as I tried to track the fight. The item the Simurgh was making was still little more that an odd looking hodgepodge of parts. As I was examining the item, Legend blasted the thing with some form of dark orange beam, dark as in it was making everything around it darker.

One of Dragon's Mechsuits rumbled as it lifted off behind me and speed towards the monstrous angel. As it entered within the scream zone, a large building tore up from the ground and slammed into the undercarriage of the craft, sending it spiralling off to the side. I flicked by eyes to the item once more, trying to divine it's secrets. A sound echoed directly behind my ear.

Instinctively I jumped forward and came up in a role with Crescent Rose pointed directly pointed at the sheepish cape whom had startled me. His costume seemed to consist of a pair of jeans with a trench coat thrown on top. His face was covered by a simple mask made from some shiny lacquered material.

“Erm, sorry bout that.” He didn't react in any manner when I stood up and put the sniper scythe away.

“I should apologize for pulling a gun on you.” Honestly, I didn't feel that bad about it, but it was only polite. The cape laughed and waved it off.

“Let's just say we're even. The name's Hax.” He offered his hand out. 

“Ruby Rose, would've been a pleasure any other time.” I took his hand and was surprised by how weak his grip was. 

“Have any idea what she's building?” His head jerked towards the Endbringer.

“Too early for me to tell, do you have any idea?” 

“Well, I can't tell what it could be, but I can narrow it down. It isn't a teleportation device, an explosive, a self replicating machine, a biological threat, a hole into another universe, an empowering device, or malicious software.” I could help it, my eyes bugged out as he went down the list.

“You can tell all that from here?” I tried, really tried, not to sound incredulous.

“Nope! That just a list of all the things she's done before.” Well, that was significantly less impressive. I guess it does have some value, if only marginally. Not sure how that helps the whole 'What can I possibly do' though. “You're a tinker right?” I nodded. “Good! So here's the thing, my tinker speciality, as far as I can tell, is power modifying tech. With some fairly obtuse limits.” 

“That seems really... broken? So what you modify your own power, get stronger then repeat to infinity?” What kind of specialization was that? That's terrifying.

“Oh, I wish it was that OP. Sadly, I can't modify my own abilities with tinkertech. What I can do, however, is 'upgrade' other tinkers.” His fingers came up and made air quotes towards the end. My stomach sank in an uneasy feeling.

“Why is it an 'upgrade' and not just an upgrade?” I mimicked his previous air quotes.

“Honestly, not really sure. How would an upgraded tinker work anyway? There isn't a single aspect that a tinker archive posses that can just be incremented. Rather, what I do, and why I call it an 'upgrade', is augment your connection to that archive, allowing you to pull more information from the archive.” Is this what it feels for others to talk to me? 

“What's an archive?” He paused for a moment, before waving me towards a secluded area of the workbench. He grabbed a pad of sketching paper from under an odd looking item and began to sketch a human head.

“So you know how triggers work right? At least vaguely? So, I haven't been able to research into most types of powers, but what happens to Tinkers and a small percentage of Thinkers during the trigger is that a connection is formed between the Corona Pollentia, the organ in our brains that controls parahuman powers and, in this case, connects to some form of external archive of knowledge and blueprints.”

“What I want to do for you, and the other tinkers, is strengthen that connection. From what I've seen, the flow of knowledge will increase. It wont help you retain that knowledge, but previous tinkers said it helps in finding the information required.” The diagram on paper had exploded with details, showing an icon of a stack of books. Between the icon and the brain was a series of strips with non-English notation. On the side a box had new strips on either side of it, forming a new connection to both the brain and the icon.

“And you choose me because?”

“You looked like you weren't being productive.” Well, there goes my pride. It doesn't look like his device does anything weird, so why not? What's the worst that could happen?

“Let's do it then. What do you need?” His mask didn't show his expression, but I want imagine that he's smiling.

“Just snap this band on and let me adjust it.” Hax pulled out a metallic band that was thin and covered half my forearm. Connected to the piece was a series of ribbon cables connecting to a tablet of some kind. The surface lit up his mask, and the band had a set of small lights illuminate in red along the inside edge of the item.

“So, I've booted the item up. I'm beginning to attune the booster to your Corona. You might feel something weird.” The lights began to shift to a yellow colour starting from the end closest to my hand. A couple of seconds passed as the lights progressed to the yellow state when I felt it. The back of my brain began to... tickle for lack of a word. It wasn't overtly unpleasant, just... [Odd]. The sensation continued as the bar of lights finished transferring to the yellow colour.

“Now, don't panic now, but the odd feeling you have now might spread. Don't worry, that's normal.” Again, the lights on the hand most edge of the band began to switch to a different colour this time. However, as it progressed, the smooth grey of the band began to glow and emanate a soft blue glow in a pattern reminiscent of a circuit board from computer science class. The sensation in the back of my brain trickled down my back. It spread, filling my body in a way that was entirely alien. Then my soul began to act differently. It was subtle, the ebb and flow of my soul around my body only slightly changed. Where before my soul flowed around my body similar to my blood, now it radiated outwards. Some was lost as it extended beyond my head, but most fed back into my chest as my soul gained energy.

I kept my soul from manifesting physically, but I felt it extend beyond my touch. I touched the ground, the air and the souls around me in a manner I never knew existed. It made me think. How sad it was, how little people knew of the world around them. My feet moved across the ground to better hold the ground to me, steadying my balance in a way I didn't even know I was lacking in. Hax looked around briefly as my soul touched on his, small and lost to the world.

Soon, the wholeness ended, “Transitioning to the final stage of acclimatization.” The lights on the band began to transition once more to a neon green. As they did so, the softer lights imbedded in the band grew in intensity. My soul snapped back towards my body and settled deep within. Everything was out of focus for a moment.

I was back. Everything was washed out. The once brilliant lights on the band were now dull. Hax's Lacquered mask wasn't brilliant anymore. Every sound was distant and muted. The feel of cloth on my body was hardly there. The scent of the ocean was muddied. The bar on the band was green. Hax was talking. I focused on his voice and tried to make out his words.

“-ey, you okay Ruby? I know that it can take a lot out of you when I first set this up.” He snapped his figures in my face and I shook my head. 

“Fine, just was out of it for a moment.” My soul was behaving normally again, even if it's was significantly more [Expended] than it was before.

“If you're sure.” His voice sounded off. “You can activate the booster at will now. The bar bellow the band of lights will increase the boost when you swipe left and decrease it if you swipe right. The lights will turn orange as you increase the percentage of the active boost.” I swipe the indicated area and the bar of lights turn about a quarter orange.

“Thanks.” I replied, but I wasn't really focusing on Hax anymore. The piece of metal around were enough to build a pair of mechashift gauntlets with shotguns integrated. I stopped myself before I could put the chassis together. [Frustration]. How would that help? I wasn't able to get close enough to use a melee weapon against the Simurgh.

What can I make? Anything really? Dust I had in a small amounts so what could I do with that? An idea came unbidden of a special projectile that could hold my soul within. Made from a dust blend and flash forged into the shape of a single projectile, it held the power of a soul within extremely well. To the point that any dust core I could theoretically place within would activate on contact and not a when I fired. I felt my hand drift towards the extremely tightly secured magazine of decay rounds.

It didn't take long to cobble together the required components for the initial stages of the dust formation process. I cheated like with Kin Win's hoverboard, and used my speed to get it done quickly. I should stop doing that, it would eat up the energy I had left far to quickly. A bowl held the shavings as I worked with one of my Stormflowers to gather the dust from it's crystal form. The blend was three parts unaligned dust to one part force dust and one part fire dust. Once I gathered the required amount of dust, I began to grind them into a fine powder. However, unlike most of my tinkering, I couldn't use my speed to move faster because ground dust was more sensitive to my soul.

I took a moment to look up from my shoddy mortar and pestle to look around. Kid Win had moved over to the remaining mechsuit and was working on it. Armsmaster was just behind him, building small items that Kid Win then took and place inside the Mechsuit. A couple of brightly coloured tinkers were working on some item or another. Hax was sitting with the cape I fought awhile ago. It wasn't surprising that they were free, considering the Endbringer attack.

The compound was a fine powder, thinner than sand was. I took another piece of metal and carefully manipulated into a mold. After another couple of tries, I gave up with the scrap metal mold. No bullet made with it would fire straight. Instead, I pulled out a single round and used the cartridge to punch out some disks of the right shape. Between the disk and the cylindrical walls I joined with it, I put a base layer of the new dust compound. Into that layer, I carefully placed a shard of decay dust. I filled the rest of the case with the specialized compound.

I took those steps and repeated it for the rest of the disks until I ran out of the powdered compound. With the four pairs of cylinders I set those aside to work on the forge. It was a newer design that the one I build inside my workshop, with four dust compartments and a reaction chamber to allow for the most complex dust reactions to fuel the heating elements. It was difficult to get strong enough pieces to withstand the heat of the reaction, but some Tungsten and Rhenium alloys seemed to be rather dense, so I used them.

With the new reaction chamber I set it up with a mix of fire and gust dust crystals with a generous amount of powdered shock and force dust powder. I was particularly careful to have the enclosure seal fully and have the grid safely locked in to hold the canisters of dust to flash forge their contents. Hopefully the flash forging will complete before the less dense cylinder melted off.

I carefully placed the eight molds into the holders and completely sealed the main reaction chamber. The dust in the bottom of the chamber was hard to activate but similar to delaying the activation of a dust grenade, I primed the dust and set the sealed chamber to the side of the table and waited for the reaction to occur.

“Woof” The chamber held, if barely. The sound of an explosion was unmistakeable as the surface of the chamber began smoking. Well, that was unfortunate. At least the chamber held in the dust during the reaction. So, I carefully used one of my Stormflowers to pry open the main chamber door and the blade slid through the material without any resistance. 

Anxiety clawed at my chest as I carefully cut open the superheated metal. Even a dust enhanced blade should normally have trouble parting a Tungsten chassis, and this one was more durable that those. When I managed to cut out the side of the reaction chamber, it burst back and nearly took my head off. I remembered to breathe as the superheated gas, wait no, that's plasma. Shit. 

Which ever God that watches must have taken mercy, because the plasma decayed before it could to any serious damage to the tinkers. The table, and most of the materials on this half of it were ruined, but hey, no one got hurt! Several people were staring at me, but I had to get the new dust crystals out of the furnace. They turned out okay, if a little misshapen. I was planning on hand carving the bullet's though, so it should be fine.

“What happened?” Hm? Oh hey, it's Kid Win! I wonder if he finished the hover board. It would have been so cool if I had a chance to integrate the ability to transition into a pair of pistols into it. Actually, thinking back to the modifications, I think I could have used this new blend to grant the board the ability hold dust charge and release it as a single blast. Hm, something to think about. Oh he's looking at me still!

“Just flash smelting some crystals.” He peered over my shoulder at the cylinder I was carving out with one of the Stormflowers. Actually, that reminded me. I took out some of the empty shells and poured the required amount of sniper grade blasting dust into the proper component, snapping the casing back together.

“And the plasma?” His voice was soft.

“The reaction didn't disperse properly.” I answered automatically, carving the bullet to match my standards for my baby. Kid Win stared at me for a while, causing a light unease settle in my bones. He sighed explosively and sat down across from me. The other tinkers around continued to work on their individual projects.

“So what are your working on?” I grabbed one of the cylinders and tossed it to him.

“A composite crystal that better handles the energy given to it.” The bullet's shape is almost right, just a couple more silvers, and I'm done. The bullet fit snugly into it's casing, which I put away in my right pouch.

“Why are you using them in bullets? A medium for electric weaponry?” He was fingering the cylinder I passed him, staring at it.

“That's one possibility I guess, but these are designed to deliver a payload and remotely catalyse it.” I watched him out of the corner of my eye while carving the next bullet. His back was slumped and he was fidgety. 

“Huh, that neat. Can you change it up and use these same rounds for a thermal or electrical payload? I mean, after you finish them.” Kid Win yawned, bringing his left hand up to cover his 'mouth'.

“Unlikely, they have the payload inside already.” I grabbed a cloth and wiped the shaving stuck on the Stormflower into the bowl the rest of the shavings had fallen into. I wonder, did Kid Win want some of these scraps? He's a hero, and a tinker, so he could probably cook something neat with them. I'll have to ask later.

“How did you manage that? I don't see any way for a payload to be added to them.” Kid Win gave the crystal one last look and tossed it back to me. I caught the cylindrical dust crystal, carefully placing it with the others. He was look right at me now.

“The payload was bonded directly into the crystal.” I placed the second bullet away and moved on to the third. 

“Wouldn't that risk having the reaction go off immediately?” His head was tilted towards the right.

“Oh, no. The reaction needs an input energy to go begin. How's the board?” Kid Win perked up, did I react like that when talking about Crescent Rose?, and pulled out the board from off his back. Huh, must be something similar to the clip I have for Crescent Rose. [Incomplete]. Actually, maybe we could work on improving it later. It'd be fun!

“It works pretty great actually! It's much more responsive that before.” Heat rose to my checks as he continued on, gushing about the new features I added. “The energy consumption is so streamlined. Propulsion now has meaningful horizontal speeds.”

“I'm glad you like it.” I give him a smile, despite my scarf preventing him from seeing it. Another completed bullet and I slotted the three decay payloads with a single brute 12 round into a magazine.

“Well, is there anything I can do to help with your current project? You kinda helped me out and I would feel bad if I didn't at least try to return the favour.” My hands moved fluidly, carving the bullet as I considered what Kid Win said. My Stormflowers could be upgraded to have a faster firing rate, with bigger magazines, if I redesigned the firing chamber to use dust primers with the new compound. Crescent Rose was fine, not much room to improve it now. All the internal components were interdependent, and impossible replace them without a complete redesign, one that was much more intensive that what I had planed to do in the next decade at least. Most of the external components weren't that important. The scope was more there for aesthetics anyway. Actually, that might need work, if I wanted any chance to hit the Simurgh.

“Are you able to get me a better scope? Either make one yourself or get one from somewhere else.” Hm, strange that I hadn't considered making one until now. The lenses needed some work but if I was careful and used dust to power it, then I could program some tracking software into it. But that needed a dust matrix to hold the program data. Which in turn required a micro forge. I don't have a micro forge, yet.

“Yeah, that's fairly easy. What size does it need to be?” I pull my baby off my back and bring it forward in it's sniper form. I carefully set another Decay payload inside it's casing.

“Catch,” I tossed the current scope I was using. Kid Win fumbled a bit, but managed to catch it without to much hassle.

“Okay, I'll be right back.” I don't look up as he left. I had to finish these rounds before the scope was done so that I could actually use them for something meaningful. It took another couple of minutes, but I now had two and a half clips of decay payload rounds. Kid Win was over by another bench, carefully placing lenses in a tube I assume is the scope he was working on.

The villain that Hax had been kitting out was working on some spherical item, with Leet right beside her. Huh, when did Leet get here? My eyes made out Armsmaster working with some tinker with huge power armour on the remaining dragon mechsuit. The Simurgh was still hovering over the city, with it's device looking much more complicated that it was before.

Kid Win was walking back towards me, with the scope in hand. He tossed it and I caught it gently. The mounting held is fine, which was good. The outside of the items was slick, with only a single knob on it's side. I peaked through the scope and turned the knob. It was pretty impressive, the sheer distance the scope covered. I'll admit it, this is much better than anything I could have made. [Indignation].

“Nice. Thanks a bunch.” I looked over at him and offered my hand.

“You're welcome. Was a pleasure working on it.” He shook my hand, then turned to watch the Simurgh beside me. “Any idea what she's doing?” I snap Crescent Rose up to my shoulder so that I could stare down the scope. It took a moment to refocus the thing in my sights. The surface was a patchwork of rust and dull ship hulls patched together with messy welds. I didn't see any of the internal pieces this time around which sucked.

“Not really.” The silence lingered for a couple moments as I surveyed the bay. Most of the boat graveyard was torn up, several good sized pieces rising to join the nimbus of part that surrounded the Endbringer. When I turned my attention back to the Simurgh, her entire figure was hidden behind a piece of a run down building.

I sighed as I brought down my baby. I just couldn't get a good shot here. I made to move when the device fired. I felt the shock wave as I was lifted bodily from my place and sent tumbling. I wasn't the only one, but people in heavier armour stayed upright, including Kid Win. I got my feet under me and stood up.

“Glory Girl Down, Night Down, Falcon Down, Grue Down, Crow Down, Anagram Down.” The Simurgh wasn't leaving. That was a problem. Thankfully, no one died, but that only meant that this weapon wasn't meant to kill capes. Dread swiftly replace whatever hope I had. The Simurgh wouldn't make a weapon and not kill someone. Not unless that was intentional.

“New Contact Detected.” My band was blinking, so I brought it up and saw a new red dot on the map interface. “Temporary Contact ID: Alpha.” 

The map of Brockton Bay showed Alpha moving towards the edge of the contact zone at startling speeds. I tried to correlate the map to my position, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't get a clear visual. Kid Win had brought out his pistol and was snapping some sort of extended barrel onto the weapon.

“Caution: Alpha creates clones of Parahumans with powers.” Well shit. This was going to hell. I loaded up one of my full decay payload magazines and chambered a round. The old one was thrown into my hip pouch. Kid Win was still adding pieces to his pistol, though it was more of a rifle now, so I returned my attention to the map on my wrist.

The red dot moved outwards, clear west of the city. The map updated to show a toppled building in it's path and Alpha turned. It's new path was travelling much closer towards the tinkering area, so I would soon have a shot. I returned my attention to the Simurgh. One of the pieces of it's nimbus was launched out into the city and landed somewhere. Why would it....

Oh, no. Please let me be wrong.

A cloning cape, created or controlled by the Simurgh was headed out of the town. Pieces of buildings 'randomly' falling down to herd it. The Simurgh's nimbus coming apart. One of the most important capes in the world. Lack of parahumans guarding the medical centre. I don't want to be right.

Another crash, and Alpha was redirected. It's moving closer towards the medical centre. With one of the highest concentrations of capes, all of them injured to some degree. What do I do? What if I'm wrong? What was worse, telling people if I was wrong or staying silent if I was right? Surely I wasn't the only one to notice? Panacea could die. If she died, then cape turn outs to these fights would lower dramatically. How many capes will die in the medical tent? All of them.

“Simurgh is herding Alpha to the medical tent.” Kid Win spun and stared at me in what could only be horror. I pressed down both buttons on the bracelet and repeated the message. I used my off hand to swipe the booster strip to deactivate the device on my arm. I feel that tingling again as the orange lights turned off.

“Caution: Alpha converging on the Medical Tent. Stormtiger down, Menja deceased, Shielder down.”

Stormflowers were loaded with brute 6 rounds. The blades were cleaned of the shavings. I had all my dust crystals for use. My soul was still fairly weak, but it will have to do. The bracer was still attached to my arm and I didn't want to risk forcing it off. 

“Caution: Alpha is capable of regenerations on Endbringer scale.” Well, I guess it's a good thing I have decay dust. I turned to Kid Win after I finished arming myself and found him slotting together several pieces of a much bigger rifle together. He finished the assembly soon afterwards.

“Want to come and help guard the healers?” I asked.

“Someone has to.” Kid Win moved to deploy his hoverboard. Instead, I scooped him up bridal style and used my speed to jump and land right beside the medical tent. He made some sort of cross between a curse and a yelp. 

“You okay?” My eyes flicked down towards the bay. Several capes were positioning between the medical tent and the largest road between here and the city.

“Y-yeah. Just give me a moment.” His hands were on his knees and he sounded like he was hyperventilating.

“Was it that bad?” I mean, Panacea didn't like it, but I kinda thought it was just the speed that bothered her. Surely Kid Win was better adjusted to moving quickly.

“Just got me, by surprise.” The map on the wristband showed Alpha nearing our current rally point. I went down on one knee to help brace Crescent Rose as I surveyed the roads. In the corner of my eye, I saw Alexandria and Legend speeding towards the medical tent. As I regarded them, I saw Legend fire a quartet of blue lasers down to my right.

“Vasher Deceased, Vindication Deceased, Cascade Deceased.”

The creature that burst through the office building's upper floor was met with a barrage of lasers, and bullets. It's lower body looked like a demented lion with bone plates covering it from it's front to the back. The face was terribly similar to a human skull, with the rest of the bones being layered over the body of the grimm creature. Attached at the top of it's skull was the torso of a normal girl. 

The bottom mouth roared and the thing charged through the attacks, guarded by some sort of field. Breathe in, follow the target. Breathe out, flood the payload with my soul. Breathe in, stay on target. Breathe out, fire. The bullet rocketed out of my baby, sending me flying onto my back. Moments before my bullet collides with Alpha, someone's projectile broke the barrier on her.

I was flipping back onto my feet as I observed the effect of by new bullet on the creature. Its bone plates were chipping away into a black smoke, only for it to regrow back in seconds. I chambered a new round and moved my aim to her human torso. When Alpha paused for a moment, I fired. The bullet slammed into her breast bone, and I felt my feet slide several feet back.

I chambered another round when the bottom, more grimm half of Alpha vomited. The grey goop spread out, revealing several human shapes inside the mess. Two people jumped up from the vomit, one jumping directly forward the other jumping back, behind Alpha. The other just disappeared an instant. Her human parts screamed, while parts of her chest rotted away in accelerated time. Still, the regeneration only struggled for a moment before it worked around the decaying flesh.

A cape with a rapier jumped in front of the forward running clone, her darkness infused blade cutting clean through him. The clone was replaced with a large brick, then he appeared right behind the sword user. He continued his run forward, only for another cape to try to end him. He looked like some sort of teleporter, but the others should be able to handle him.

The bulk of the capes focused on ending Alpha, but none of their attack were impacting the monster. A chill ran down my spine as I watched the projectiles curve away from her and the other clone. I won't be able to risk using my decay rounds. Two clicks and the magazine was released and I loaded the strongest brute rounds I had.

Alpha vomited again, then she became a truck? What? I chambered the new rounds, storing the decay payload away. A scream from my right startled me. Making sure to stay out of the others lines of fire, I saw a dozen or so clones decimating our capes.

“Parian Deceased, Fog Down, Myrrdin Down, Gregor Deceased, Falcon Deceased,”

The clones appeared, strike down a cape or two then disappear. I tried to track them, but they move so irregularly that it was messing with me. Did Alpha get a copy of that teleporter? Trickery, I think his name was. To many people were between me and the conflict area. I moved around the edge of the medical tent. A flash, and I sped myself to the right. The beam was hard to make out, but one of the clones must have lasers. 

“Gully Down, Metis Deceased, Adrastus Down, Bitch Deceased, Titan down”

Rolling up to my feet, I fired a shot directly towards where the laser came from. My arms glowed a bright red as the damage I should have taken from the recoil didn't happen. I kept moving, no matter the damage dealt to the capes here, the clones weren't that important. Alpha needed to be taken down.

“Kel Deceased, Micheal Deceased, Cascade Deceased.”

I got to the other side of the tent, but no one was there. The bracelet didn't reveal where the grimm went. I turned around, only to see something's claws slashing down at me. It's chest burst apart. My hands were shaking when I chambered the next round. I moved back towards the fabric of the tent and tried to get a line of sight on the clones.

Where was it? My eyes darted around, but I couldn't get any visual indication of the [Grimm]'s location. Another flash of red, and the ground right were I was standing a moment ago was burnt. Huh, when did I move? I tried to focus but that damnable itch at the back of my head wasn't helping. I heard it, this time. Unlike before, the air was displaced when the grimm appeared.

I used up more of my soul that was wise, but my speed carried me to safety. As I span around, I got my first good look at the clones. The looked human, if you were blind. Hair black and coarse as fur, teeth sharpened into points, elongated arms, and bone splinters shooting through their body. The soulless husk tried run me through on some form of glowing spear, but I was already out of range of that.

Crescent Rose released into her full glory as I cleaved the creature in twain. It's body began dissolving into smoke as I triggering my baby's compression mechanism. The grimm must have thought that I was weak because I was sniping. That doesn't make sense though, snipers have higher calibres then most weapons.

Someone insider the tent screamed. I was inside faster than I could blink. The fabric was easy to tear through. Alpha had just torn through a bed and was bearing down on Panacea. Speed grabbed me as I twisted in front of the grimm. Crescent Rose was back in her full glory, and the scythe cut the monster's human body from it's bone plated pieces. Once again, I shifted her back into her sniper form to gain speed on my turn.

The creature sliced at me, and I wasn't moving fast enough. I cringed as the claw landed on my eyes, unable to pierce through my soul's protective barrier. Crescent Rose was only centimetres from having a clear shot when my soul broke. The energy that had been protecting me was expended. Pain seared across my face as I lost sight. I couldn't see anything. Everything was black. Despite the pain, I fired. Pain flared up my arm as it was thrown backwards. I was only barely able to reattach my weapon to my back before I collapsed on the ground.

“Kid Win Down, Chubster Down, Clockwerk Down, Manpower Deceased, Ruby Rose Down.”

Several shouts sounded around me, but the only thing I felt was a warm thing surrounding me. Then even that feeling was gone. I felt nothing. No sound, no smells, not even pain followed me. I was alone. Everything else was so distant. Fear clawed at me as everything I knew was cut off. Let me out! Let be OUT! LET ME OUT!

Darkness.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

I was alone. Nothing was there. I was alone. The ground had died. I was alone. The air was dead. I was alone. I was dead. Alone. Nothing existed. Alone. My body was gone. Alone. Everything was black. Alone. Floating. Alone. Void. Alone. Death. Alone. Giants on Planet. Alone. Dead Planet. Alone. Giants Leaving. Alone. Dead Giant. Alone. Shattering. Alone. [Anxiety] Alone. [Transfer: Energy: Soul|Life|Unknown] Alone.[Relief] Alone. [Query] Alone. [Comprehension] Alone. [Communication] Alone [Companionship] Alone [Negation] Alone.

[Not Alone.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story died out a couple of month ago(like 5 now?) but I forgot to put the fifth and sixth chapter up here. On that note, if any want to adopt this story, go right ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> This story wouldn't stay out of my mind, despite not actually being finished Worm yet. At the time of my final edit, I was at the beginning of Arc 25. For my own sake, could no one mention any plot points after this arc? Thanks! Feel free to leave a review or PM me if you have criticism or just want to give me a compliment.


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